


The Adventures of Damian Wayne As Batgirl

by AuguralSanguinary



Series: Batgirl Damian [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Crack Fic, Crack Treated Seriously, Crossover, Damian Wayne is Batgirl, Damian Wayne-centric, Or as recommended by commenters, Other Avengers show up, Tags will be updated as the fic is updated
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2020-11-08 16:01:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 61,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuguralSanguinary/pseuds/AuguralSanguinary
Summary: It's what it says on the title card. Damian is Batgirl and also deals with the Avengers.Also, the first part of this series provides some context that might be necessary.





	1. Damian is now Batgirl

**Author's Note:**

> FYI: IF you bookmarked this when it was titled 'Jason is a Moron' or for the first chapter, that's now on the previous work of this series.
> 
> I was very tired when I wrote this. And I don't remember much of the writing it. But. I have made the decision to share it with you, because why not.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian is Batgirl. SHIELD knows of Gotham Vigilantes and I'm very tired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, unless specified otherwise, if Damian is Batgirl, he's using Barbara's voice. Also, this is crack now, right?

“How were we supposed to know there’d be a news helicopter right outside Stark’s tower?” Jon whined. They got caught. A news helicopter had caught Damian and Dick jumping off the tower and Dick bent and revealed everything. Damian had tried to tell Batman that everything was fine, but the fact that they got caught by the Avengers meant that it wasn't. Jason’s broken leg didn’t help convince him either.

Telling Batman that Joker almost killed Jason again in the same vein he killed him the first time had the man fretting on Jason’s bedside and apologizing for any and all conflict. So really, Superman was lecturing them and Alfred was looking on disappointed.

“Why am I in trouble? The rule is we can’t go out into the world with _ our _ masks. It doesn’t say anything about doing so in someone else’s.” Damian complains. Superman opens his mouth to lecture, probably, but Alfred cuts him off.

“The young master is correct, I suppose. Master Bruce’s rule is that they cannot be outside ARGUS approved cities in their masks. He said nothing about them dressing up as each other outside the cities.”

“And you think Bruce will agree with that?”

“If Master Bruce did not wish his children to find loopholes in his rules, he should not have imposed such strict rules.”

“For kids to follow his rules, he needs to be more lax?” Clark asks, confused, that didn’t make much sense.

“No, Alien. If we think a rule is stupid or unjust or just far too strict, like forbidding us from leaving the manor for doing the right thing, we find ways around it.”

“Master Damian, you are only bound to the manor when grounded, and that is typically because you have done something wrong.”

“Killing someone to protect father is not wrong.”

“Master Bruce disagrees.”

“Father can bite me with his stupid morals.”

“Okay! Off-topic!” Clark cuts in, “You’re both still in trouble. You deliberately disobeyed us. ARGUS is not happy.”

“ARGUS is never happy.”

“No, but because of you, the Avengers now know of the Joker.”

“So what?”

“So that is something they will be sticking their nose in even though they have no business there.”

“I’m sorry, was there a point there? That’s not our problem. They want to deal with the psychopath, fine. They can deal with him. I won’t protest to them seeing him make people laugh to their deaths. Or just straight up killing them. Maybe they won’t be so fucking stupid then.” Despite his childhood, Damian was still a teenager, so with that outburst, he turned around and went up to his room. Ignoring his family and the Kents.

“I’m sorry dad. I thought we’d just be getting Jason out and that’d be that. We didn’t expect it to spiral like this. “ Jon says, wringing his hands.

Clark sighs before speaking, “I know son. We just have to be careful. The world is going to be looking for heroes now, and we can’t let them find us.”

“Why not? What’s so wrong with being known by the world?”

Clark sighs again, “I’ll explain later. Let’s go home.” With that, the two flew off, back to Metropolis.

_-Damian’s Room-_

Damian was drawing on his bed when his father knocked on his door. He had a very specific knock different from everyone else in the house, two knocks about 1.5 seconds apart.

“I already know I’m grounded father.” Was enough permission for Bruce to come in.

“You’re not grounded.” Bruce says, sitting down on Damian’s bed, Damian looks up from his sketchpad to look at his father.

“I’m benched from Robin?” Father’s punishments were predictable.

“Yes. Why did you go out as BatGirl?”

“Gordon had Danvers fly over the suit, it was either that or civis.” Damian returned his attention to his sketching, “Besides, you forbid us from wearing our masks outside of ARGUS approved cities, said nothing of anyone else’s.”

“Clearly my rule should’ve been no vigilante-ing outside of approved cities.”

Damian snorts, “No, we would’ve just broken it in our own costumes.”

“Right. Still, following the exact wording of my rules, you didn’t break them. So, you’re not in trouble.” Bruce says, getting up and going to the door.

“But I’m benched from Robin?”

“Well, you’ve found a new identity for yourself. Alfred’s already taking the suit in to make sure it up to current specs” Bruce says before leaving. 

It takes Damian a minute before he fully realizes what his father just said. He’s no longer Robin because he’s Batgirl. ...Not how he thought his day was going to go. Damian grumbled and pulled out his phone, calling Gordon.

“What’s up demon?”

“Has father informed you of the new development?”

“You’re benched?” Gordon guessed.

“No.”

“You’re grounded?”

“No.”

“Okay… tell me?” She was clearly confused by the random guessing game.

“Father has declared that since I went out as Batgirl, I’m no longer Robin.”

“So you are benched.”

“From Robin. He’s having Pennyworth work the suit up to our current specs.”

“The suit?” There was a pause before Gordon realized, “Wait, _my_ suit? My old suit? Bruce can’t make you Batgirl!”

“Technically, you did in New York.” If Damian was any other child, Gordon probably shouldn’t have been swearing so heavily while he was listening, but, he wasn’t.

“Fuck it, why not.”

“Excuse me?” Damian was actually hoping Gordon would get pissed enough to lay into Father and he could go back to being Robin rather than becoming Batgirl.

“Meet me in the clocktower in two hours. I’m going to train you my way.” With that, Gordon hangs up.

It was one thing to dress up as Batgirl and mimic Gordon when in a different city, one specifically out of bounds, it's another to make a habit of it in his very home. Although, he was curious as to how Batgirl training differed from Robin training.

Getting his ass kicked by Cain six times in a row is now what Damian would consider training. He was obviously getting better, being able to read her intent a bit better every time, but he still lost horribly.

“How is this training?” Damian demands, accepting Cain’s hand to help him up.

“It's not. Just curious how long it would take you to ask.” Gordon states, typing away at her computer.

“Got it.” Brown states, coming into the Clocktower with a garment bag. “New and improved original Batgirl suit.” She states, handing the bag to Damian.

“Get changed and your training will really start.” Gordon orders and Damian heads into the bathroom to change. While doing so, he wonders, not for the first time, if it would just be easier to talk to Father about this and get Robin back. But that would be admitting he couldn’t be Batgirl, and admitting failure. 

Before pulling on the mask, Damian turns to look at himself in the large mirror Gordon had in the bathroom. The costume hadn’t changed much, visibly speaking at least, still purple and yellow with black accents. It fit Damian better now, and clearly had kevlar in it, especially in the bust region. Considering it existed, was fairly sturdy and Damian didn’t have breasts. The cape was now longer, and the mask now had lens’s in it similar to Damian’s robin mask. Damian pulled on the cowl and exits the bathroom.

“Are his boobs bigger than mine?” Is the first thing Stephanie says.

“It’s Kevlar armor, extra thick to protect my heart?”

“Alfie didn’t have to make it that big though.”

“It’s not that big.” Gordon says, finishing up on her computer and turning to look at him,”But, you now have a weight on your chest, so you need to learn to fight with it. You and Steph are going to spar until you win.” Gordon instructs.

“Alright little Demon, lets’ go.” With that the first session begins.

Damian paused the video he was watching when Dick knocked on the door.

“Come in Richard.” Damian calls.

“How’d you know it was me?” He asks, coming in.

“You knock three times in quick succession. No one else here does.”

“I… never realized that. Whatcha doing?” Dick asks, sitting down beside Damian on his bed.

“Homework.”

Dick looks at Damian’s tablet seeing the video he has paused, and raises an eyebrow, “Watching videos from Babs’ run of Batgirl is homework?”

“Because I announced myself to the world acting like Gordon, she has decided that is what I will do as Batgirl-”

“What”

“So while she is also training me to move like she has in the past, she told me to watch any and all videos I can find of her fighting to learn how she moves and such. And find any audio of her quips and responses to villains.”

“I’m sorry, back up, ‘as Batgirl’? Dami what-”

“Father has not informed you?”

“No?”

“I’ve been retired from Robin and will now be Batgirl.”

“And you’re okay with that?” Dick didn’t think Damian would be, it was one thing to do it once while circumventing Bruce’s rules, it’s another to do it every single night.

“Yes. Gordon’s training for Batgirl is very interesting, and as Batgirl, I will be patrolling alone.”

And that makes everything click into place, and also made Dick think about the fact that, yeah, Batgirls patrol alone. “I… have never thought about that, but wow. Batgirls either patrol alone or with the Birds of Prey. Sometimes the Sirens. Wow. Wait but, um, Babs had boobs.” Wow there has got to be a better way to say that.

“Pennyworth added a thick kevlar padding to my chest area. It will afford extra protection and make it seem like I have breasts.”

“Huh. Cool.”

“Yes. Is there something you originally wanted?”

“Oh, yeah! We have to head down to the cave in full costume. ARGUS has demanded a video call.”

“Wonderful.” Damian mutters, turning off his tablet and follow Dick down into the cave so they can get dressed.

Ten minutes later everyone present in the house was dressed and standing in front of the batcomputer. Damian, as Batgirl was standing between Red Hood and Nightwing with Red Robin on Nightwing’s other side. Batman sitting down in front of everyone.

The ring from ARGUS’s call echoed in the cave before Batman answers it.

“Congratulations, you’ve made Tony Stark start butting into our business.” Waller says as greeting.

“Like it wouldn’t have happened anyways,” Red Robin scoffs.

“Stark shoves his nose into everything, it would’ve happened sooner or later.” Batman states monotonously.

“SHIELD is also digging into us now and we’re having to deal with multiple hacking attempts daily.”

“How is this our problem?” Damian asks, once more using Barbara’s voice.

“It’s your problem because its your fault.”

“Mmm, no, its your fault. You're the ones who decided we needed to be a secret and then hid yourselves from the general public. We didn’t even tell them about you. You’re getting attention because you sent them a cease and desist about the Joker.” Damian says, bursting with fake bubbliness.

“We only had to send them one because you can’t control your menaces.”

“No, we cannot and we never claimed to be able to.” Batman states, “You presumed we could contain our villains to our cities, your presumptions are your own fault and not ours. If this is all this call is about, then I should remind you I told you to not call me with trivial matters. Do so again and all future calls will be ignored.”

“We could just arrest you then.”

Batman smirks, “You’ve tried that before. Remember? Lost fifteen guards, three buildings and at least one of your guards is walking around with only one ear.“ Batman returns to his normal scowl, “Now, is there anything more you wish to waste our time with?”

“SHIELD demands to see Batgirl, Nightwing and Red Hood.”

“Sucks to be them.” Red Hood states.

“They’ve stated that either you will come forward or they will storm Gotham to bring you in.”

“Time limit?”

“A week.” 

“I’ll handle it.” With the, Batman hangs up on Waller.

“You’re not seriously going to make us go see SHIELD, right B?” Dick says.

“I never said I would. I said I’ll handle it.” Batman says and thats the end of that conversation as he starts busying himself on the computer.

“Okay, that aside. What the fuck demon?” Tim demands, turning on Damian.

“What was what Drake?” Damian asks, back to his own voice.

“The everything you just did.”

“It’s called acting, Drake.” With that, Damian turns and heads off to change out of his Batgirl costume, it wasn’t even close to patrol time.

“I cannot be the only one who gets unnerved when the demon brat acts like that.” Tim states, looking at his brothers for confirmation.

“It is a bit odd. Damian is never as bubbly or happy as he is when he’s pretending to be Babs.”

“Because Babs is a lot more bubbly and happy than the demon will ever show.” Jason states.

“Yeah. Sometimes I wish he was comfortable enough to actually _ be_ that happy.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Jason’s question changes the topic and draws attention to the Batcomputer where Batman is sending out an email to every newspaper/station in Gotham, and Metropolis. Along with some youtubers who had shown open support for the vigilantes but also had an audience outside of Gotham and Metropolis. 

“Telling everyone that SHIELD is threatening to storm Gotham and take you into custody.”

“You’re going to pin the media against them.”

“Yes, along with a few specifics, such as how Nightwing was the first robin, Red Hood was the second and Batgirl is only thirteen.”

“I thought Damian was fourteen.”

“He told the Avengers he was twelve, I’m giving a happy median.”

“Hey, speaking of, what are you going to do with Robin? Since Damian is now Batgirl?”

“Well, I was actually talking to Cassandra earlier and she mentioned she wanted to try being Robin. “

“Seriously?”

“Yes. She will be Robin for however long she wants and after that, I may retire Robin entirely.”

“Wow, after decades you’re finally retiring Robin? What about your future sidekicks?”

“I will try to convince them to wear colours that do not resemble a traffic light.”

“I was nine!”

“You never suggested a colour change.”

“Neither did anyone else!”

“It was a tradition by then Dickalous!”

Damian heads upstairs, away from his arguing family and heading back into his room. He still had homework to do.

888888888888888

“Sir, you should see this.” Hill says, walking into Fury’s office, she pulls up two news broadcast recordings and one from youtube. She hits play on one.

_ “This is Vicki Vale reporting for The Evening Capital, we report the truth and only the truth. Now, I’m sure you’ve heard already that SHIELD has decided that Nightwing, Batgirl and Red Hood need to be brought in. And while we will get to that, first, I’d like to take everyone on a trip to memory lane, to many years back, when we first saw Robin with Batman,”_ a picture of Dick Grayson original Robin costume shows up on screen and Vicki Vale continues talking, _”We watched that young boy grow up, we had heart attacks every time he tousled with one of the criminals roaming our streets, and then, one day, he disappeared and was shortly replaced by a far younger boy. Before we continue, what happened to the original Robin? Well, he left Batman and became his own hero,”_ A picture of Nightwing replaces the picture of Robin, _”The young boy we watched grow into a man is now being hunted by an organization whose motives are unknown. Now, back to the second robin who couldn’t have been more than twelve, he’s so small. Barely over four feet tall. We didn’t get to see him grow too much. He disappeared merely a few years after he appeared, I’m sure most of you remember the rumours that he had been killed. Well, that tiny boy grew up to be the Red Hood. And, I’m sure if you’ve listened to any of Hood’s interactions with the Joker, you will have heard him talk about the man killing him. These two boys we watched grow up are the ones who are going to be taken in by a shadow organization not known for releasing their prisoners. If you don’t care about those two, then consider that Batgirl is barely in double digits. She is a child, and yes, she should not be out on the streets, but if you live in Gotham, you know full well it is pointless to stop a child who has decided to protect this city. Who would condone this?”_

Hill pauses that recording and goes to the next news broadcast;

_”Hi, I’m Lois Lane, and this is the daily report from the Daily Planet. We, as well as every Gotham and Metropolis newspaper and station got an email earlier stating that the government organization known as SHIELD, thats Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division, would storm Gotham city to retrieve the vigilantes known as Batgirl, Nightwing and the Red Hood. Now, many of may think, ‘why is that so bad’? And, ‘Why does it matter?’ Well, for one, the Batgirl you will see out tonight, the one they wish to take into custody, is only thirteen years old. How would you feel if your teenage daughter was taken in by a shadow government agency? If the only thing she had done wrong was trying to protect her city and home? I have a son whose ten, and if some government agency tried to take him away, I would fight tooth and nail to protect him. Our children are the most precious thing is life. Speaking of children, how did you feel when Robin was killed a year ago? We know next to nothing about this agency, perhaps the fate Robin faced that night will be the fate of three vigilantes who do their all to protect us and help those who need help.” _

Hill moves onto the youtube broadcast;

_“What’s up my Cherries? I know I’m late to the party about this SHIELD and Bats stuff but I wanted my thoughts in order. If you haven’t yet, check out Lois Lane and Vicki Vales’ news reports, because those pull heartstrings. But I’m not here to do that, if SHIELD wants to arrest those three, they’re welcome to try, but, I don’t think they’ll have much success. We’ve all had experience with ARGUS, well, we’ve all seen ARGUS in action, especially their Suicide Squad which we all know has the fabulous Harley Quinn on it. But, she’s also here like every other week, and there is that super memorable time ARGUS tried to hold Batman, I think he bit someone’s ear off. But, ARGUS is a shadowy government organization like SHIELD and they _ suck_ at holding literally anyone from Gotham. Do you really think SHIELD will have more luck? And, there’s also this threat of them literally storming Gotham to take down the vigilantes, like, what? Do they seriously think that will work? I mean, even if they get past Batman and like literally everyone because have you seen what the criminals of Gotham do when someone invades this place? They boot up and kick their asses out. No one invades Gotham. So, honestly, like try it SHIELD. I’m eager to see the results. But, like, even if they succeed, do they honestly think they’ll be able to take Batgirl, Nightwing and Red Hood down? Like, even if they don’t have help from their friends, we haven’t see Batgirl in action yet, but we all remember the last time a little kid started on the vigilante scene right? Robin was brutal when he started out. I can’t wait to see what Batgirl will bring, but we know full well what Nightwing and Red Hood will bring. These guys have taken down aliens, evil dopplegangers, godlike beings. Like, Red Hood keeps up with a kryptonian and Amazon, how fucking badass and strong do you think he is? I’m actually eager to see how this will play out. I’m betting SHIELD arrests them and then losing like their entire headquarters, all secrets being exposed because we all know Red Hood is a petty bitch, and at least one person getting their ear bit off. Like, please, like none of them would do that? Just a little Throwback to when the other shadowy organization tried to hold Batman. It won’t work out well, but I’m eager to see the dumpsterfire this becomes.” _

Hill pauses the last broadcast. “There are dozens more like this. ARGUS blasted us to the media.”

_ “Actually, Batman did.”_ Waller says and Fury turns his computer so Hill can see the woman.

“We’ve heard of this Batman, but have yet to get any concrete information aside from he likes to bite.” Hill states.

_ “And it would be my preference that it stays that way. I have kept these people a secret for decades.” _

“Age of heroes.”

Waller snorts,_ “Not these heroes. The Gotham vigilantes are only a few of many heroes the world has no idea exists, and I’d prefer to keep it that way. However, due to Batman’s actions, it appears you and your team will require a debriefing on these people. Tomorrow. 0900.” _ Waller hangs up with that final word.

“Sir?” Hill asks.

“Inform the Avengers, let’s hope that those three make the right choice and don’t require forceful acquisition.”

888888888

“I am totally a petty bitch. But the demon brat will probably upload all their information on the web.” Jason states, having finished watching CherCherry’s youtube report on them.

“Oh please. I would never do something so stupid. I would use Gordon’s program to singulate their personal information and send it to their family. Internet history, search history, everything.”

“And we now have another reason to call you a demon, you fucking demon.”

“Also, will it be hilarious to anyone else if Batgirl does meet the same fate as Robin? Because Damian dying twice in the same fashion will be utterly hilarious.”

“Screw you Todd.”

“Or what? Going to mock me to death?”

“If that’s what you want.” Damian snipes back in Jason’s voice.

“Okay, Babs is right, that is super fucked up.”

“Children, patrol!” Batman calls, hoping into the batmobile with Drake and driving off.

“Master Damian, the keys to Batgirl’s bike.” Alfred says, holding a set of keys in front of Damian. Damian grabs them and smiles up at Alfred.

“Thank you, Pennyworth.” Damian says before getting on the bike and following Nightwing and Red Hood as they drive out of the cave.

999999999

“Why is this so early?” Tony asks, drawing something up on his tablet, not paying attention to the conference room around him. The Avengers, Fury and Hill were all waiting. It was almost nine.

“This isn’t that early, Antoshka,” Before Tony could respond to Natasha, a black woman with several guards enter the room. 

“Good, you’re all here.” She states and walks to the front of the conference room, turning on the hologram screen to display beside her. “Due to recent events, I’m going to share with you information that can never leave this room. It does? You don’t want to know what will happen. Understood?” A mumble of agreement echoes through the room and Waller turns the hologram to a video of a woman in red, blue and gold gladiator-esque armour. The video plays and she fights with a shield and sword in some instances and a glowing lasso in other ones. “This is Wonder Woman, Princess Diana of Themyscira, daughter of Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. She has super strength, super speed, she was quite literally born to kill Gods. The first known instance of her in from World War 1.” Waller turns the hologram to an old picture of Diana from WW1 with some soldiers, “She’s immortal, and she will kill if its what you push her to.”

Tony starts tapping away at his tablet, running a facial rec on the woman and ending up with nothing, which makes no sense.

“Next,” Waller states, the hologram screen shows a video on a man in a deep blue jumpsuit with a red S on his chest, he is shown fighting bare-handed but also using heat vision and cold breath, “This is Superman, Kal-El of the planet Krypton. He is invulnerable, has super strength, super speed, heat vision, freeze breath, he has been nicknamed ‘A God Among Men’ by many news outlets. He will not kill, it goes against his moral code.”

Tony does the same thing and it once again comes up empty.

“Finally,” A picture of essentially a shadowy figure that vaguely looks like a man, or maybe a bat shows up on the screen, “Batman. He is completely human, no special abilities. He has been trained extensively in martial arts and has innumberable gadgets, but he is as human and you or I.”

“So what makes him dangerous enough that you mention him with a God Killer and a veritable God?” With that question, Waller plays another video. Batman is much more clear this time, and the fight starts quickly, with Superman attacking the man before Batman can retalliate, however, as the fight progresses, Batman starts to win and by the time the fight is over, Batman has won.

“Batman knows everyone’s weakness. He is prepared for the day you snap. He knows exactly what to do to get to someone, as do his children. You had experience with one, Batgirl. She used the Captain’s sentimentality of his lost friend to lower his defenses and take him out. There are no such things as secrets with the Batfamily. Batman can and will defeat any and all people, things or Gods he goes up against.”

“You mentioned my sentimentality of Bucky, but wouldn’t he be sentimental about his family?”

“Batman doesn’t lower his defences when that’s brought up, if anything, they’re raised.” Waller hits play on a different video, its a short news report of Batman, “This is right after his son was killed, the first one.” Waller explains as the news report talks of how brutal Batman was being, showing graphic pictures of what he had left behind, he had started branding people, it was messy, “And here’s what he was like a little over a year ago when he lost another son,” The video changes to a video of Batman being brutal and almost inhuman to criminals. “When Batman is broken, things become far more dangerous for everyone. These are from alternate universes that have come to ours, these are the Batmen that have broken.” A bunch of short videos showing cruel and vicious men dressed up as Bats, killing torturing and essentially revelling the chaos they have caused. “Batman is just as dangerous as the other two, despite having none of their powers. If you choose to go through with retrieving Batgirl, Red Hood and Nightwing, you will lose. He will not hold back against a threat to his family.”

Before anyone can says anything, a bubbly voice sounds from the shadows, “Oh, that won’t be necessary!” Batgirl comes out of the shadows and flips onto the table, “Ta-da~”

“What the-”

“How did you get in here?”

“I came in with them silly.” Batgirl states, pointing a finger at the ARGUS agents, “you were so focused on them, you didn’t see moi. Misdirection is your friend.” Batgirl giggles, shrugging a bit.

“Would you care to answer a few questions?”

“Maaaaybe. Depends on what they are. And, I feel I should warn you,” Batgirl pulls out a small round metal ball, “If you try to take me into custody, the supporting beams of this structure will be blown.” Batgirl giggles once more, smiling brightly at everyone in the room, “So, questions?”

000000

“Woooooow, you are all suuuuuuper boring.” Batgirl complains, laying down on the conference table, fiddling with the small metal ball. Waller and ARGUS had left so it was just Fury asking Batgirl annoying questions.

“And you haven’t answered a single question.”

“Because they’re all boooooooring. Can’t you ask a fun question?”

“What’s your favourite animal?” Tony asks, making a ‘why not?’ motion when Fury gives him a look.

Batgirl whines, “That’s a hard question,” she sits up, facing Tony, “Dogs are so cute and amazing and loyal but Cats are awesome, Cows are loyal and caring and so sweet, Rats are adorable and their trust is amazing to earn, Bats are super cute and fun, and why did you have to ask a hard question?” Batgirl pouts.

“...Favourite movie?”

“Uhh, Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth Bennet is hot. ” 

“Fair. Favourite superhero?”

“Ooooh, that’s hard. Hmmm. Can I answer it later?”

“Of course. Oh! Favourite fast food establishment?”

“BatBurger! I got my favourite action figure from there. Foods not bad either, ‘specially if you need to attack your brother with it.”

“I have never heard of that place and I now want to try it, I am also so hungry. Hey Fury, can we order food?”

The man looked so done with them that he just sighs, “Sure, go ahead. Call me if you make any leeway.” Fury states and leaves the room with Hill close behind.

“Sweet, is Burger King an acceptable replacement to BatBurger?”

“Hmmmmm, I… suppose so. If its absolutely necessary.”

“Sweet, J, order my usual, a kids meal for the kid and do you guys want anything? Your usuals? Yeah, just get everyone their usual J.” Tony got a reply in his ear that was inaudible for anyone else.

“Who do you hate the most in the world?” Batgirl asks, looking at Tony.

“What a weird question. I- I actually don’t know. Who do you hate the most?”

“I don’t know either. I kinda want to hate my mother, she nearly killed me years ago and put father through so much stress the entire time I was in the hospital, but, she’s my mother, and she’s been trying to make up for it. I don’t know if I should hate her or not, the other person is the Joker, duh, he killed my brother and paralysed a friend. And he’s constantly trying to get Bats to break and kill so he’ll go down that dark spiral, but he’s I don’t know, he needs help. Nightwing says we might see him dressed as a flying squirrel one of these days, on our side.” Batgirl giggles but she’s clearly still upset. “How can you hate someone who has so much baggage?”

“Their baggage isn’t yours to deal with. No matter their excuse for how they’ve dealt with you or your family, you don’t owe them forgiveness. They hurt you, and regardless of their reasons, you’re allowed to be hurt, and you don’t have to rationalize it away.”

“So why do you?”

“Excuse me?” Tony wasn’t expecting that.

“You rationalize away a lot of pain the people closest to you cause, how can you be so hypocritical?”

“What languages do you speak?” Natasha cuts in, noting Tony’s uncomfortableness and drawing attention away from him.

“Uh, English, Arabic, Cantonese, ASL, and I think that’s it.”

“I speak Russian, and Cantonese.”

“Cool. If you could bring anyone back to life, who would it be?”

“Hmm, do I have to of known this person in life?”

“Nope.”

“Cleopatra. She seems interesting. What about you?”

“My grandparents. I never got to meet them.”

“That’s sweet. What’s your favourite candy?”

“Uhh, Nibs. What about you?”

“Can’t get enough of Milky Ways. Terrible for me but so good.”

“Nougat candy bars typically are. How many people have you killed?”

The question caught Natasha off-guard, though she tried not to show it, “I lost count a long time ago. Have you ever killed anyone?”

“Only in self defense, my father’s a cop, so, I do get attacked and defend myself, sometimes to the death. It’s life.” Batgirl shrugs, but something about that answer bugs Natasha.

“How have you learnt so much about us?”

“Everything about you is out in the open, you guys don’t have any secrets.” Batgirl dismisses.

“How’d you mimic Bucky so perfectly? I didn’t think there was any vocal recordings of him before his death.” Steve asks and Batgirl looks like a deer in headlights, clearly panicking before giving a very fake laugh.

“Well, you thought wrong.” Batgirl was visibly uncomfortable.

“What are you hiding?”

“Why would I hiding anything?”

“You don’t know how we’ll react.”

“Oh no, I know precisely how you will react to everything.”

“You’re confident in that.”

“Of course, I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t confident.” Batgirl scoffs and then the small metal ball she had in her hand started beeping, “Oops! Times up! Gotta go! Bye” Batgirl calls before leaving the room via the window.

“We’re on the forty-third floor.” Tony states, staring at the spot Batgirl was just at as the others rush to the window. When they get there, there is no evidence of Batgirl hitting the ground. She had just disappeared. 

“Why do they do that?”

“To give people heart attacks?”

0000000000

“How was the interview?” Dick asks once Damian had returned to the cave, the younger man pulled off the cowl.

“Fine. Unnerved a couple of them. Learned what they want from us.” Damian states, handing over the small metal ball he had during the interview. Richard accepts it and plugs the recording device into the batcomputer to upload the interview. “Also learnt that they are unaware of Barnes’s survival.”

“Ah, that would’ve been awkward.”

“It was. Gordon wasn’t quick with a save. I used up almost all the memory.”

“Figured, you’ve been gone for a few hours.”

“Being Gordon is peculiar. She’s so peppy.”

“Thanks.” Barbara states, a video call for hear starting on one of the screens.

“What’s up Babs?”

“How do they not know of the Winter Soldier?”

“You only know because Mother sometimes, rarely, works with him.” Damian points out.

“We didn’t know who he was until you. We knew of the Winter Soldier. Hard not to. But, ugh, I’m sorry, I was too surprised that they didn’t know to help you out.” 

“It’s fine. The recorder was almost full anyways.” Damian says with a shrug.

“You got a copy of Waller’s presentation, right?” Dick asks.

“Duh. She went into more detail of Batman than the others, but the Avengers now know of Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman.” Barbara says, uploading a recording of Waller’s presentation to the Batcomputer.

“B will probably check that out later. Dami you should shower and get some rest. You didn’t get much sleep before you headed over to the Triskelion.”

“Sure, after I brush out this wig. It gets so tangled whenever Kent flies me.” Damian says, walking off toward the shower area and the costume cases.

“Are you sure about him being Batgirl?”

“Why not? Kid’s more than capable. Plus, did you see Joker’s face last night when he encountered Damian? I have never laughed harder at the man in my life.”

“Okay, I guess I’m just worried. I won’t see him as much on patrol and I guess its just…”

“He would’ve grown his own wings eventually Dick. Be glad he didn’t do it in the same vein you did and just fuck off to an entirely different city with little to no communication.”

Dick chuckles, “Fair. Damian is branching off on his own a lot smoother than I did. I just, I guess he’s still that ten year old in my mind, showed up looking for his father, full of rage and trauma. Robin just seemed right for him at the time.”

“He reminded you of you. Because I’m pretty sure at age nine, you were full of rage and trauma and had just received an unwanted new father figure, and you got Robin.”

Dick smiles a little sadly at the comment before his eyes widen in horror, “Oh god, I’m turning into Bruce.” Which caused Barbara to burst out laughing. “No, I’m serious, I just straight up adopted the kid the moment he showed up. No hesitation. What the fuck.”

“Aww, poor Dickie, doomed to become his father,” Barbara got out between laughing fits.

“Shut up, this is serious.”

Barbara calms down and shakes her head, “No its not. You saw a kid in need and you stepped in. Yeah, Bruce does that, but that just means you learnt something from him. Not that you’re becoming him. You’re already way more emotionally available than he is.”

Dick lets out a little laugh, “Fair. B is many things, emotionally constipated is one of them.”

“Yeah. And hey, when Damian is older, Nightwing could always use a Flamebird.” Barbara says and Dick nods with a small smile, “I am remembering that right, right?”

“Yeah. Nightwing and Flamebird. Damian already took that mantle up once.”

“Think he’ll be as feathery this time around?” Barbara ask and they both laugh for a bit.

“Where is he?” Dick asks, getting up and heading to the side area with the showers and costume cases. “Oh,” Dick mutters when he finds him, Damian was still in the Batgirl suit, asleep on the bench. His cowl on a head stand and the hair all brushed out. Dick changes Damian out of the suit and into some spare clothes that are stored in the cave. After hanging up the suit, he picks Damian up and carries him to the main room. “I’m going to put him to bed. Later Babs.”

“Bye Dick.” With that Dick heads upstairs and puts Damian to bed.

00000000 

“Why would you tell him to say that?” Barbara was listening to the recording of Damian’s interview with the Avengers with Stephanie and Cass. The Batboys will deal with it later probably.

“I didn’t. He came up with that all on his own.” Barbara defends.

“Seriously? He went off like that of his own violation?”

“Yeah, I didn’t know he had such strong feelings toward Talia. Although, I don’t know where he got the flying squirrel thing from.”

Stephanie shrugs and turns to Cass who also shrugs, “Eh, B will probably know.” Steph dismisses.

“Well, he’d had to of heard it from someone. I did supply the line about cop dad though. Robin was a known former assassin, can’t have Robin disappear just as an ex-assassin Batgirl emerges.”

“Fair. Did he come up with the Pride and Prejudice line on his own?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, cause it sounds like something I said a few months back when defending the right to watch Pride and Prejudice on movie night. Damian hasn’t even seen the movie.”

“To your knowledge. He does live with Jason sometimes.”

“Yeah, what do you think Cass?”

“It was interesting,” Cass says after a pause, shrugging, “He’s doing good.”

“And with that glowing review, I need to get to work.” Steph says, heading towards the entrance of the Clocktower but stops, “Does anyone else kinda _want_ to see Joker dressed up as a Flying Squirrel?”

“Go to work!” Barbara calls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I... really need to get to sleep. Forgive any mistakes. I like super need to get to bed. I'm sorry. Oh, the numbers I used for spacing mean nothing, I just kept forgetting what number I used before. i am very tired. And very sorry.
> 
> Come bother me at [ tumblr ](https://auguralsanguinary.tumblr.com) if you want. Open to any and all suggestions on follow-through with this crackfest.


	2. Winter Soldiers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian finds the winter soldiers, The others go to a gala

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point, I have no idea what I'm doing  
If you're still here, thank you?

“Master Bruce, you’ve received a letter from a Mr. Stark,” Alfred says, having brought in the mail. It was all the normal things save for the envelope Stark had sent. The family was all in one of the family rooms, Damian, Stephanie, Duke and Jason battling it out on Mario Kart while everyone else either ignored them or added to the chaos.

Bruce was ignoring his children, hoping they would not resort to biting. Again. “A letter? Stark still sends letters?” Bruce asks, looking over at Alfred and grabbing the envelope from the butler’s outreached hand.

“It appears so.” With that, Alfred left the room.

Bruce rips open the envelope and pulls out a card. It’s an invitation. To a Charity Gala Stark was hosting.  


_Hello Mr. Wayne!_  
_We are pleased to invite you_  
_To the HeliosLearning 5th annual_  
_Charity Gala hosted by_  
_Anthony E. Stark!_

_We hope you join us in raising money  
For all children to get a proper education._

__

__

Then, below the printed automated invitation, and the time and location details, there was scrawled in handwriting;

_P.S. Bring your children_

“What’s Stark want?” Dick asks, taking a break from antagonizing the Mario Kart players to bug Bruce.

__

“To invite us to a Charity Gala,” Bruce says, setting the invitation on the side table. 

__

Dick scrunches up his face, “He sends paper invitations for those?” Considering Stark was a futurist, it was definitely surprising he didn’t just email out all the invitations.

__

“Maybe he felt we were old fashioned.”

__

“I guess. Wait, Stark has never invited us to a Gala before.” Dick realizes.

__

“No, I figured he was still mad about Prague.”

__

“What happened in Prague?”

__

“I don’t know. But I know he was mad at me for it.”

__

“It is so like you to not even know why someone is pissed off at you.” Jason inputs, not looking away from the game.

__

“Not everyone shouts it from the rooftops Zombie.” Damian scoffs.

__

“Watch it you little demon,” Jason shoves Damian hard enough for him to fall off the couch, but Damian, at the last moment, twists around and pulls Jason with him, the two end up fighting on the ground while still playing Mario Kart.

__

“He also wants me to bring my children.” Bruce adds, “Not sure if I should.” Looking directly at the two waring on the ground while his others goad them on, even Duke and Stephanie who were still playing Mario Kart, and still somehow losing to the two on the ground.

__

“HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU STILL WINNING” Jason yells. Damian was, in fact, still in first place, by some sort of black magic.

__

“DIE MAD ABOUT IT, TODD. AGAIN” Was Damian’s response and a kick to Jason’s stomach.

__

“What’s the Charity for?” Tim asks, ignoring his brothers.

__

“Education for children.”

__

“Oh, that’s a boring one.”

__

“Really Tim? It’s _boring_?” Stephanie asks

__

“Education Charity parties are always boring. Unless the kids they’re educating come, then it’s fun because children. But otherwise it’s a bunch of rich assholes talking about how poor those children are to not be able to afford a true education while they prance around in an outfit that could pay off student loan debt for at least three students and have enough money to build a school all on their own and fund it completely without it even denting their lifestyle. But nooo they have to wait until someone puts on a stupid Gala to actually give a flying fuck about uneducated children.” Tim heaves a sigh after his rant, adding, “Count me out.” Before going back to doing stuff on his tablet.

__

“Count me in,” Stephanie calls.

__

“You want to go to that trash?” Damian sneers, his opinion of the Gala was in the same vein as Tim’s. People didn’t care about a problem until they had a reason to care, that reason is people liking them for doing good things.

__

“Yeah, and you’re going too.” 

__

“I am not.”

__

“Batgirls stick together, Babs will order you to go if you refuse.” Damian glares at Stephanie but doesn’t say anymore, turning his attention back to the game to defeat his siblings.

__

“Two for three. Jason? Duke?”

__

“I’ll go.”

__

“I’ll pass, I hate penguin suits,” Duke says, shuddering a bit for effect.

__

“Three for five. Dick?”

__

“Is it this month?”

__

“It’s this weekend.”

__

“I’m really busy, sorry. I’m out.” Dick says with an apologetic shrug.

__

Cass taps the back of Bruce’s shoulder, having stood silently back the entire time and raises her hand in an ‘I volunteer’ motion. “You want to go?” Cass nods, “Okay. Four out of seven. Good enough.”

__

Jason snorts, “What, you’re not going to ask anyone outside of this room?”

__

“No. No, I am not. The only four of you wishing to come will be enough of a headache.”

__

“Hey…” Stephanie calls, “Cass is not a headache.”

__

“I have no doubt in my mind all of you will end up fighting at least one person. And Lucius gave me a cap on how many lawsuits I can strike up in one night.”

__

“Fair.”

__

“GOD FUCKING DAMMIT” With that exclamation, everyone turned their attention to the screen where Damian finished in 1st place, Jason in 2nd, Duke and Stephanie in 3rd and 4th. 

__

“Well, now that that’s done, we need B’s credit card,” Stephanie says handing her controller to Dick. 

__

Bruce was already handing over the card before he stopped to ask, “Why?”

__

“We’re going to a gala,” Stephanie says, taking the card, “We need fancy dresses. I don’t have any, and Jason definitely doesn’t have any suits without blood on them.” Jason shrugged in agreement. “Now come on! Shopping time.” Stephanie says, pulling Damian up from where he was on the ground and dragging him out while Jason and Cass follow of their own volition.

__

“How much could one really spend on dresses?”

__

“Do you really want an answer to that question?”

__

_--_

__

The four were at a dress boutique. They had spent what felt like an hour picking out dresses and now Cain and Brown were trying them on. 

__

Damian was texting Gordon, asking if he _really_ had to go to the stupid Gala because of Brown.

__

The answer took a while, three dresses later, Damian got a text back saying _’No. Because you have plans. Get to the clocktower ASAP.’ _

__

“What do you think of this one? Too much purple?” Brown was asking as she came out in a floor-length purple and black gown.

__

“Can anything be too much if it’s you’re favourite colour?” Todd asks.

__

“I don’t care. Gordon requires me elsewhere. I will not be attending this Gala,” Damian says, then adding under his breath ”thank gods.” 

__

“Aww, you’re leaving?”

__

“Yes.” Damian pauses,” I like the ombre one.” Damian adds before leaving the boutique and heading to the clocktower.

__

_--_

__

“You want me to track one of the most notorious assassins out there?” Damian asks, really needing Gordon to clarify that. This was not what he expected when she demanded he come to see her.

__

“Yes. Well, technically I’ll be the one tracking, but you’ll be hunting and retrieving him. I already have a place to start so get dressed. And remember to turn on the thermal layer.”

__

“Where are you sending me?”

__

_-Siberia-_

__

Damian had grabbed a scarf from the clocktower and was covering his mouth and nose since that was really the only part of him the Batgirl suit exposed to the elements. He had landed in Siberia a minute ago, trudging through the snow into the old bunker. The thermal layer installed in every suit was keeping him warm so he wasn’t shivering despite the well below freezing temperatures.

__

“Remind me why I’m here again,” Damian asks, turning on a flashlight and heading down a hallway.

__

_ “We know the Winter Soldier works for Hydra.”_ Gordon starts explaining, _” And Hydra was mainly active in the USSR until its collapse and then we lose them.”_

__

Damian walks into a room with five large tubes in it. “Gordon I think we have a problem.”

__

_” The base should be deserted, you should be fine.”_

__

“You know how I said they would keep him in a cryo-chamber whenever he wasn’t in use?” 

__

_”Yeah…”_

__

“I’m currently in a room with five of them. And they’re all occupied.” Damian says, shining the flashlight on one of the cryo-chambers, showing the face that lies beneath.

__

_” I’ll contact ARGUS about that later. Just, don’t defrost them. Find any information on the Winter Soldier”_ Gordon advises, Damian could hear the slight panic in her voice. Damian wasn’t equipped to fight five super soldiers, and he wasn’t arrogant enough to try.

__

“Understood.” Damian moves around, careful not to touch any of the controls, to try and find any paperwork for the transfer of the Winter Soldier. He hadn’t been with the USSR when Damian worked with him, but none of his handlers were from the same country so it was hard to say where he was from. Digging around Damian had found mentions of a German branch, a Sokovian branch, and a USA branch of HYDRA. Along with a bunch of files on members, “Hey, isn’t there an Alexander Pierce on the WSC?”

__

_”Yep. Asshole.”_

__

“HYDRA.”

__

_”Wait, seriously?”_

__

“Well, I doubt there’s a file on him stating ‘Ally’ for no reason.” Damian snarks.

__

_ “If he’s HYDRA, I wonder who else…_” Gordon’s voice fades out and Damian can hear the distant clacking of keyboard keys. Damian goes through more files but finds nothing on the Winter Soldier’s probable location. He does find a lot of probably outdated information on HYDRA. _” FUCK!”_ Gordon shouts through the comm, causing Damian to jump.

__

“What!” Damian shouts back, then wincing a bit when it echoes throughout the base.

__

_” I’m like 90% sure HYDRA is being led from the USA. Get back here, new game plan. _

__

“Do you want me to collect any information from here?”

__

_”No. Uh, actually if there are any records of any other bases there you might want to grab them, otherwise, just go.” _

__

“I’ll look for a bit,” Damian says and turns off the comms. Gordon can turn it back on if necessary but there was no reason to stay on the line. Damian spends an hour ruffling through any files he could find, he didn’t want to turn on any of the power in case it thawed out the assassins, so he stuck to physical files. He wasn’t sure if he trusted ARGUS enough to let them have five super assassins, he doubts they would be used for the good of the people. Damian grabs the files regarding other base locations, they were coded but it would be easy to decode. Damian puts the files on the Batjet and then rustles through the supplies on board. Damian internally cheers when he finds a tranq gun and a couple of packs of Bane-level tranqs. They worked on the Captain, so they’d most likely work on the super-soldier assassins.

__

If not… dying wasn’t awful.

__

Loading the tranq gun, Damian heads back inside and turns on the power, standing in the middle of the room of the cryo-chambers while they defrost, keeping an eye on all five. Thinking about it, he probably should’ve called for backup. He wanted to try and convince them to turn over a new leaf - which dear God he’s turning into Grayson- but if that failed, he probably wouldn’t be able to tranq them all. Super Assassins. Who thought that was a good idea?

__

“Oh look, a little girl.” A smooth voice says in perfect English. 

__

“Oh look, a big girl.” Damian snarks, which he definitely shouldn’t do. All five were awake and out of their tubes. Thankfully, they had all congregated together in front of Damian so he didn’t have to worry about them flanking him. 

__

The one who had spoken before, the only girl who seemed to be the leader, didn’t seem to care about his attitude as she spoke again.“I would not think HYDRA would send a little child to retrieve us.”

__

“You would think right. I’m not with HYDRA.” That threw them all on edge, two of them closest to him dropped into a fighting stance, the other two where looking around without trying to give away that they were looking around, but the leader merely seems suspicious.

__

“Then who?”

__

“Not really with any organization. But I have a proposition for you.”

__

“Oh? What a brave little girl, all alone and yet so dauntless to act like you have the upper hand.”

__

“Whoever said I didn’t? After all, we might all be assassins but only one of us was ever meant to be the leader.” Not that he wanted to be the leader. Still, he was the best assassin out of the League of Assassins behind his mother and Grandfather. And HYDRA wasn’t exactly known for their good training. Even the Winter Soldier could use some work. Although he’s brainwashed so, who knows if that plays a part.

__

“You? A leader?”

__

“Trained to take over the League of Assassins.”

__

“Never heard of it.”

__

“Of course you wouldn’t. We were actually good at being a secret organization. Regardless, I absconded. And now, I would like to talk.”

__

“How about we make a deal? If you’re such a good assassin, why don’t we have a match? If you win, we’ll listen to your proposition.”

__

“And if you win?”

__

“You’ll be dead.”

__

“Very well.” If he refused he would most likely get attacked, he might’ve been the superior assassin, but that does not mean he’ll win against five super soldiers.

__

Damian pulls off the scarf and tosses it aside, dropping into a fighting position. The woman, the leader, walks forward until she’s about five feet from him and drops into her own fighting stance. A moment passes and she decides to make the first move, it was easy to dodge, including the quick follow up move. The fight continues, Damian does his best to not let her get a shot in, she could do some serious damage with her enhanced strength, but when she managed to kick him he found she was holding back. Part of him hated that, but part of him was grateful he wouldn’t have to go home with broken ribs. Rolling with the hit and getting up quickly, to continue the fight. He had gotten in a few shots but most of it was fairly healed by now. He wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to win this, he couldn’t hit her much because just doing so could break his hand unless she rolled with it. The fight continued, he got in a few more hits, she did too but he managed to avoid most of them. With her holding back on using her enhancement, they were fairly well matched, although she does have a very obvious opening Damian would take advantage of it he wasn’t worried about breaking his bones.

__

It seemed like it may go until Damian was too tired to dodge until she grabbed the red hair on the back of his cowl and yanked it, when she was pulling hard, Damian released the clasp keeping it connected to his suit so it would detach and hit her. It did. The ears pierced her cheeks and the mask itself hit her face pretty hard. Damian rolled away from her. The woman yanks the cowl off her face and tosses it aside, looking down at Damian who was still crouched.

__

She spits out some blood and says “You’re not a girl.” Which, fair, he had never really looked like a girl, but he could still be one. 

__

“Never said I was,” Damian states, back to his normal voice rather than Gordons.

__

“How peculiar,” She says before aiming a kick to his face, he dodges and the fight resumes, eventually, he gets tired enough to be too slow and ends up on the ground the woman’s foot on his chest. 

__

Well, fuck. He was going to die from a chunk of kevlar being shoved into his chest. He couldn’t decide if this was worse than being killed by his own clone due to a bounty on his head put there by his own mother. Because on one hand, its not a family member or someone will his face, on the other, it’s kind of humiliating to die by kevlar.

__

“What’s your proposition.” The woman above him demands, which wait, what? 

__

“Turn over a new leaf. Or join an organization other than HYDRA. ARGUS will eventually be coming after you, especially if you kill me because my associate will call them, they’ll probably do what they always do with criminals which is put a bomb in your brain and make you work for them otherwise your head will explode. Americans. If you like the organization thing, I can take you to the League of Assassins, they probably won’t mind taking you in. You can fuck off on your own and become goat farmers, you can come with me to my city, I could take you to a colleagues city, you can work out of there.”

__

“Work how? Turning over a new leaf implies leaving behind who we are.”

__

“Vigilantism. That’s what I do. Crossdressing aside, you fight crime while hiding your identity. Preferably you don’t kill, especially if you go to my city. There are a few exceptions to that rule. But I can get into those later.”

__

“Hmm, so our options are; join you, join an approved organization-”

__

“I don’t exactly approve of the League of Assassins” Damian mutters,

__

“Or be hunted down like dogs and have bombs put in our heads.”

__

“Or fuck off on your own and become goat farmers. That is also an option.” Damian states, earning himself a ‘don’t be stupid’ look.

__

“Where do you operate out of.”

__

“Gotham City.”

__

“Well, we’ll never be bored there.” One of the guy’s remarks, and judging by the follow-up grunt he got elbowed in the stomach for it. “What? We won’t. That place is insane.”

__

The woman considers him for a moment longer before taking her foot off his chest and walking over to the others. Damian gets up, despite how much pain it caused and walks over to his cowl, picking it up and wiping the dirt off. After making sure it was clean inside, Damian pulls it back on, attaching it back to his suit. Damian walks over to his scarf, removing as much of the dirt and grime off of it before shoving it into his pocket, not really wanting to put it back on his face.

__

“We’ll come with you. But we may wish to head to the League of Assassins if your city proves disappointing.” The woman says.

__

“Of course. Come with me.” Damian says, back to Gordon’s voice. He leads them out of the cryo-room.

__

“Hey, is your mask thing changing your voice or…” One of the guys asks.

__

“No,” Damian states, slipping into his own voice. Either the man had no follow up questions or one of the others stopped him because the rest of the walk is silent. Damian walks up the gangplank into the Batjet and slides into the pilot chair, turning on the comms on his cowl.

__

_ “Retrieve all the information?”_ Gordon asks.

__

“Yes. As well as five super soldiers.” Damian states, powering up the jet, he looks behind him to see all five onboard so he has the gangplank pulled up and entryway sealed. “Sit down and buckle up, we’re going to take off soon.” Damian orders. 

__

“You can fly?” The woman asks.

__

“How do you think I got here?” Damian asks, starting up the engine. All the assassins sit down and buckle up as Damian brings the jet up and heads toward home.

__

_ “Damian. Just because we’re going after one HYDRA assassin does not mean you have to adopt all of them.” _

__

“Why not? Everyone deserves a second chance. I’m bringing them to Gotham, I will also be contacting mother about them potentially joining the league.”

__

_ “Oh joy, they’re going to be here or with the league. I’m understanding why B likes to keep an eye on you. You’re almost as bad as him with the taking in of people.” _

__

Damian snorts, “You’re not wrong, the amount of people deciding I need to be parented or have decided to start doing so is startling and annoying.”

__

_”Ah yes, Dick, Bruce, Ollie, Clark, who else? Slade to an extent I guess, especially after that DNA test fiasco, which, by the way, was never actually corrected legally speaking so, Slade could actually legally become your father, FYI, if you want to get B on that.” _

__

“Ducard, Abush to an extent, Black Adam, Sinestro, honestly, you could run gladiator fights.”

__

_ “Wouldn’t that be hilarious? Fight to be Damian’s father. Ah, and then dad dads everyone so we might as well add him to that list. Jeez, you’re getting a bigger family than B.” _

__

“As if. I just don’t want to deal with any more adults whose parental instincts kick in around me.”

__

_ “Mm, yes, it would be a terrible shame if our enemies stopped being our enemies due to their desire to adopt you.” _

__

“Fuck off. How are our enemies?”

__

_ “Oh, they’re great. Steph had a run-in with the Joker,”_ Gordon snorts, _”Do you remember the thing you said with the Avengers? About him in a flying squirrel outfit?” _ It was clear Gordon was holding back laughter.

__

“That was a joke! About something father told me Joker said before he killed Todd.”

__

Gordon talked through her laughter, _” Right, well, Steph apparently bought a flying squirrel onesie and brought it with her on Patrol. And, uh, she, she chucked it at him, and said ‘In case you ever want to join us’ before leaving to let Batman deal with him. And, we, we could both hear him shout ‘Oh Batsy! You remembered! Be still my heart!’ And something else we couldn’t catch.” _ Gordon kept laughing.

__

“Hilarious. Any headway for the Winter Soldier location?”

__

“He should be in America.” The woman states, Damian raises an eyebrow behind his cowl but doesn’t look back at her. He was still flying.

__

“Don’t suppose you can narrow it down any further.”

__

“All I know is that in the event our branch was shut down, he was to be given to the Americans.”

__

_ “Well, we knew that already. I found a likely place they’re holding him. With Pierce being part of HYDRA I looked into him further and found a bank he owns, through several shell accounts. The bank is out of use, but there is unusually high security and electricity for an abandoned bank. We’re going to be taking it the night of the Gala because Pierce is set to attend.” _

__

“What does it matter if Pierce is there? He’s a weak old man, only useful for his position and power. “

__

_ “He can call for reinforcements? And declare you a threat to national security?” _

__

“He could do that regardless of if I knock him out myself.”

__

_ “From my end, it’ll be easier okay?”_

__

“Okay.” 

__

_ “See you in ten.”_ With that, Gordon turns off the comms.

__

“We’re going to be arriving in Gotham in seven minutes. You will most likely meet my associates when we land, do you have any questions?”

__

“How many people do you work with?”

__

“Regularly? Nine. But there are many other vigilantes in Gotham.”

__

“Do you know what we did for HYDRA?”

__

“Does it matter?”

__

“It might.”

__

“Your history does not define you, what you do in the present does.” 

__

“Who were you talking to earlier?”

__

“Oracle. She knows everyone and everything. If you meet her, you will find she has the same voice as I’m currently using. “

__

“So you use her voice when vigilante-ing? Doesn’t that get disconcerting when you talk to her?”

__

“At first. She got used to it. What would you like me to call you? I never got any names.”

__

“Sascha.” The woman answers first.

__

“Josef.” One of the men, the white clean-shaven one says.

__

“Valeri,” Another man, the only one with a beard states.

__

“Tyree,” Another of the men, southeast Asian if Damian was right, he didn’t want to attempt to narrow down where he was from exactly without more information.

__

“Nasir,” The last man, the only black one states.

__

“Nice to know. Any final questions?”

__

“What’s your name?”

__

“Batgirl.”

__

“Your real name.”

__

“Damian.”

__

“Why do you pretend to be a girl?”

__

“That… is complicated and not something I want to get into right now. Besides, we have to meet the family.” Damian pulls the Jet in for a landing on top of one of his father’s apartment buildings, his father, and mother are waiting for them. Damian exits the Batjet first. “I presume Oracle filled you in?” He says as the assassins follow after him.

__

“She did.” Batman states, looking as unhappy as always, “They understand that if they operate in this city they will not be killing anyone?”

__

“We do.” Sascha states.

__

“Then this will be discussed further later.” Batman says before diving off the roof and grappling away.

__

“I was told you might wish to join to League.” Talia says, stepping forward.

__

“We are unsure.”

__

“What, precisely, are your qualifications?”

__

“We speak over thirty languages, we are capable of taking down an entire country in one night, we know how to hide in plain sight and were the most capable Death Squad HYDRA had ever seen.”

__

“HYDRA isn’t that capable to begin with. But, if you decide that Gotham isn’t for you, Damian knows how to contact me.” With that, Talia heads off. 

__

“Wonderful,” Damian mutters and walks to the stair door, “The penthouse here is currently unoccupied so you’ll be staying here.” Damian states, holding open the door for the assassins to go into. Sascha goes in first and the others follow, Damian going in last.

__

When they enter the penthouse Damian turns on the light. There were white sheets on all of the furniture as this penthouse hadn’t been used in at least a year. 

__

“We’re to live here?” Valeri asks, pulling some of the sheets off of the furniture, the others were doing the same. 

__

“If you choose to. Of course, it is contingent that you do not kill while you are here. You may start vigilante-ing if you wish, we will assist but it is not necessary. You can have normal lives if you wish.”

__

“We’ve never had normal lives.” Nasir states, laying down on the couch, Tyree was investigating the TV and all the consoles attached to it.

__

“Neither have I, doesn’t mean you can’t try.” 

__

“Let’s try the vigilante thing first.” Sascha states.

__

“Tomorrow. Settle in.” Damian tossing a comm to Sascha, “That connects to my personal comm, call me if you have any questions or concerns. Order some food, the doorman will pay for it and send it up.” With that, Damian heads back up the stairs and takes the Batjet back to the cave before heading out to the clocktower. 

__

“Was taking in five assassins necessary? I mean, I don’t trust ARGUS anymore than you do but we could’ve just left them there.” Barbara says when Damian approaches her.

__

“And let someone else gain five assassins who are extremely capable and dangerous?”

__

“They’re HYDRA capable and operated in the 80s and 90s, not exactly the pinnacle of stability and security.”

__

“Well, they wish to try out vigilante-ing, I figured father would not mind running the rules by them and making sure they’re well trained. They’re heavily enhanced, but at least one of their forms is sloppy.”

__

“And how do you know that?”

__

“I… might’ve sparred with one of them to convince them to come with me?” 

__

“Did you win?”

__

“No, she was heavily enhanced and I didn’t care to break my bones trying to take her down. I had Bane tranqs if the situation was dire.” He actually lost the gun when they were sparring but Gordon did not need to know that.

__

“Would you have won?”

__

“Yes, she left her right side wide open. “

__

“B will have fun training them then. “

__

“Yeah, do you have anything you wish for me to investigate or should I just head out on patrol?”

__

“Did you bring the files you got from that base?” Damian held up the files he had brought with him, handing them over to Gordon. She takes them and says “I’ll go through these, go on patrol, I’ll call you back if you’re needed.”

__

Damian does a two-finger salute before leaving the clocktower and heading out on his normal patrol route.

__

He does get a call midway through the night from the assassins about how to work Netflix and the Switch, but they get it after a short explanation and he doesn’t hear from them for the rest of the night. 

__

He’ll talk to father about their training in the morning.

__

_-TheGala-_

__

“Brucie!” Stark calls when Bruce approaches him with Jason, Cassandra and Stephanie. 

__

“Tony!” Bruce calls back, opening his arms and pulling Stark into a tight hug.

__

“Hugger, right, how could I forget.” He heard Tony mutter under his breath. Bruce releases Tony, smiling brightly.

__

“How have you been, I haven’t seen you since Prague.”

__

“Yeah… I’ve been meaning to ask, what happened in Prague?”

__

“I have no idea. I thought you knew and were mad at me for it.”

__

“I have a vague memory of it, but I honestly don’t remember much, aside from feeling mad at you.” Stark says then shrugs, “Who knows? Doesn’t matter anymore.”

__

“Of course.“ Bruce responds, shrugging as well.

__

“So, are these your children?” Stark asks, gesturing to Jason and Cassandra, Stephanie was retrieving glasses of champagne. 

__

“Some, some had other plans, a few just didn’t want to come.”

__

“They didn’t want to come to a charity fundraiser?”

__

“Tim has strong opinions.”

__

“On _charity_ fundraisers.”

__

“I mean, I also have strong opinions, but I’m here,” Jason mutters, accepting a champagne glass from Stephanie, who hands one over to Bruce and keeps one for herself. Cassandra didn’t drink.

__

“Oh?” Stark prompts, which, you know what, is his own funeral. Bruce decides, taking a drink of his champagne while Jason launches into his opinion.

__

“Yeah, this thing is fucking pointless. No one here gives two flying fucks about children or their education, they care about being recognized for doing something ‘good’. You could spend the money you spent on this party to give kids a good education or a new school or any bullshit they actually need and if any fuckface here actually cared, they’d donate without needing all this fancy schmancy bullshit. It’s fucking stupid.”

__

“That is definitely a strong opinion. And very swear heavy.” Stark states, seeming to not know how else to reply. Jason just shrugs, “So, what are your names?” Stark asks, changing the subject.

__

“I’m Stephanie, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Stark. This is Cassandra, she doesn’t talk unless necessary. “ Stephanie introduces, holding the hand that is not holding a drink out to shake Starks. 

__

“It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Miss Stephanie,” Stark says, shaking her hand.

__

“Jason.” Jason states when Stark turns his attention to him, making no move to shake the man’s hand or anything.

__

“Well, it’s a joy to meet you all, Brucie, I was wondering if I could talk with you…” Stark trails off, implying ‘privately’.

__

“I am going to go schmooze,” Stephanie says, hooking her arms around Jason and Cassandra’s and walks away from Bruce and Stark. 

__

“What do you need to talk about?” Bruce asks.

__

“What do you know of Gotham Vigilantes?”

__

“This and that, I take it you’re interested in Batgirl.”

__

“And Red Hood if you know anything.”

__

“Well, I can’t say I know much more than anyone else on the new Batgirl, aside from she seems shockingly similar to the first.”

__

“The first? How many Batgirls have there been?”

__

“I believe the current one is the fourth. The first was also a redhead, almost the same costume, same attitude, honestly, if she didn’t look so young I’d say it was the first one all over again.”

__

“Perhaps she’s just mimicking the first one. We’re pretty sure the current Batgirl is a vocal mimic, so perhaps she’s working with the first Batgirl to imitate her.” Bruce shouldn’t be too surprised that Stark deduced that much, the man was a veritable genius.

__

Bruce let surprise show on his, “Really? I suppose that could be so, but I’m afraid I don’t know any more then.” Bruce shrugs, “As for Red Hood, he is quite dangerous, I would implore you to be cautious. He is not known for mercy. A while ago he worked for Black Mask, then he became a drug lord before going to vigilantism, I think. But regardless, he is a criminal, a very dangerous one at that.” Bruce didn’t enjoy talking about Jason like this, but this was the information available to the public on Red Hood. He was considered extremely dangerous and not to be interfered with. 

__

“Hmm, is he anything like that Bat guy? We got a briefing on him but, not on any of his kids. Red Hood was one of them wasn’t he?”

__

“He was. He was one of the Robins. But, in regards to Batman, I’d say he’s not that similar. Perhaps in their aggression and to me their fighting styles are very similar but, what do I know about fighting?” Bruce shrugs, “Is this the only reason we were invited?”

__

“No. I would also like your money. For the Charity.” 

__

__

Across the large room, Stephanie was standing alone, both Jason and Cass had branched off on their own, which was okay because Babs needed her help. Babs was given instructions through Stephanie’s earpiece, which was carefully hidden by her styled hair.

__

_ “I need you to distract Alexander Pierce. I texted you a picture of him,” _ Stephanie pulls out her phone to see a picture of an old blonde man. _” Distract him however you can for however long you can. Once you’re done, call me and I’ll tell you what to do, we might need reinforcements.” _

__

Stephanie says nothing in reply but puts her phone back in her clutch and grabs a champagne glass off of one of the waiters and starts drinking liberally, looking around for Pierce, he was on his phone. Stephanie finished off her glass and replaces it with a full one, she takes a few sips and purposefully adds a little stumble into her movements, giggling a little bit, and planning her course so when Pierce turns to go to the door, she runs right into him, spilling her drink all over him and his phone.

__

“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry.” She says, making herself sound tipsier than she was, patting at his suit, “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

__

“It’s fine,” Pierce says, pulling her hand away from where she was patting it. Stephanie was 90% sure it wouldn’t be fine if he wasn’t needed elsewhere at that very moment.

__

“No, no its really not. I ruined your suit.” Stephanie instantly when into crying drunk girl mode, tears welling up in her eyes, “I’m so sorry, please forgive me, I was so stupidly distracted”

__

Predictably, like all men she knew, he freaks out over her crying, because very few men actually know how to deal with someone crying. And there was exactly one at this party, and his name was Jason. “It’s really fine. It’s okay, I forgive you, I’ve been meaning to buy a new suit.”

__

“Are you sure?” 

__

“Of course, will you stop crying?” What, did the guy take emotional lessons from Bruce? But Stephanie nodded and wiped her eyes carefully to not disturb her make up.

__

“Do I look okay?”

__

Pierce nods, “You look beautiful.”

__

“Really? I don’t look like I just cried over spilled champagne?”

__

“No. Now I have to go.” Pierce moves to leave but Stephanie grabs his arm.

__

“No, wait! Please let me buy you a new suit,” Well, Bruce would be buying it but, semantics, “It’s the least I could do after ruining this one.” The man had a clear mental argument over this before apparently deciding just agreeing would get him away faster.

__

“Alright, why don’t I give you my card and we can set up a date?” Pierce says, pulling out a business card.

__

“A date?” Stephanie asks, clearly indicating a completely different thing that what Pierce meant with her tone, taking Pierce’s business card. She could see the internal argument in his head, she wondered if he was married, if one of the arguments was flirting back, letting her down easy or straight up rejecting her. Maybe he didn’t even care for women in that way. Stephanie jostles a little when she feels Jason’s hands on her shoulders.

__

“Sorry about her, she’s drunk and when she’s drunk she only comes in three modes, crying, flirting and flirting while crying. So sorry.” Jason says and pulls her away, “Babs asked me to retrieve you, the brat needs assistance.” Jason murmurs, just loud enough for Stephanie to hear. “Let’s get you home. So glad we took a different car than Bruce.” Jason says at a normal volume.

__

Stephanie nods and just lets Jason guide her out of the building and to the car park, getting in the car she and Jason had arrived in and heading to Bruce’s apartment in the city. She gets Jason to unzip her from her dress and just takes it off before she was actually out of the car and heads into the armoury to get suited up. 

__

“You couldn’t hang it up!” Jason calls, detouring to hang up Stephanie’s dress before entering the armoury half naked and also getting suited up.

__

“Nope.”

__

__

A few minutes later they were both suited up and driving off into the night on their bikes, following instruction from Oracle on where to go. When they arrive at the rendezvous point they find Damian’s pet assassins with masks on. 

__

“Whassup?” Stephanie calls when they stop their bikes by the group.

__

Oracle cuts in before they could say anything.

__

_ “Josef, get on the back of Spoiler’s bike, Valeri get on Red Hood’s. Tyree on Sascha’s. Nasir go off on your own but be prepared to retrieve someone.” _ Everyone got situated as per Oracle’s orders, _” Wait until Batgirl shows up. Then drive off on her signal.” _

__

A minute later, Batgirl speeds around the corner with a large man on the back of her bike. There’s a beat before she speaks, “We’re going to drive together for ten blocks before splitting off from each other, understood? Nasir, head off now, we’ll call if we need a pickup. Josef switch with the Asset.” Josef and the Asset switch riders as Nasir takes off, “Spoiler head off now. Sascha stay straight, Hood go right.” She instructs, Spoiler taking off immediately, Batgirl pauses for a moment, regarding everyone before ordering, “Let’s go.” They’ve barely started before a black SUV stops behind them. They speed off as the SUV and a few others follow them, by the time they reach ten blocks, the three separate easily but each gets an SUV following them, with Batgirl and Red Hood having two. Spoiler was far enough ahead of them that she didn’t have any tails.

__

__

“Can you take over?” Jason calls back to Valeri, who moves his hands from Jason’s waist to the handlebars and slowly kicks Jason’s feet off the peddles. Jason in turn, swings around, wrapping his legs around Valeri torso, moving his head so it was on one of Valeri’s shoulders and not blocking the mans view before opening fire upon the SUVs following them, trying the windows before hitting the engines and tires.

__

__

“Grab the handlebars,” Batgirl calls to Josef, and once he did she grabs a few bombs from her belt and drops them on the ground, aiming them enough that they hit the tires of the SUVs following them.

__

“Good aim.” Josef comments before relenting the controls back to Batgirl.

__

“Good steering.” Batgirl states.

__

__

Sascha and Tyree manage to lose their SUV easily and make it to the rendezvous point first.

__

__

Regrettably, their SUV ends up following Batgirl and Josef.

__

_ “Everyone but you and Spoiler have made it to the rendezvous point.” _ Hood says over the comms.

__

_” Spoiler has a different Rendezvous point. You’re only waiting on Batgirl and Nasir.” _ Oracle cuts in.

__

“We still have a tail, I’m going to drop Josef off soon, he’ll call Nasir with his location,” Batgirl says over the comms.

__

_”Roger that”_ Nasir says.

__

“I’m going to slow down around here, jump off where you feel comfortable,” Batgirl warns and slows down as much as possible while still keeping a bit of distance between them and the SUV. Josef jumps off and Batgirl immediately speeds up. The SUV passes him without even slowing, most likely seeing his face and knowing he wasn’t the asset. Josef runs to the next street over and calls for Nasir to come get him.

__

While Batgirl was driving away, one of the men in the SUV leans out of the window and fires at her tires. He ends up hitting something else that causes her bike to stop and throw her. Batgirl rolls with the fall and gets up once she was done rolling. She reaches back for something, but before she can grab it, she gets shot three times. Once in the stomach, which makes her pause, once in the chest, causing her to flinch back and once right between the eyes, making her stumble back. The good thing about the Batgirl suit being up to specs means the entire thing is bulletproof, except for the parts with skin showing. Batgirl pulls out a mask and attaches it to her cowl, covering up the remainder of her exposed face. With that in place, she pulls out some batarangs and rushes at the SUV. She gets shot at but manages to avoid actually getting shot again, throwing batarangs and preventing them from shooting at her. Eventually, the men that had come at her from the SUV were all down, although that didn’t do much with the new spotlight shining on her from the helicopter. More SUV’s whip around the corners and box her in.

__

“Batgirl!” Someone calls from a megaphone, “Surrender now or be taken in forcefully.”

__

Batgirl looks around and raises a hand to her head to talk into the comms, “Oracle, prevent the Five Daggers from interfering.”

__

_ “You can’t take on all those people alone.” _

__

“Who said I was alone?”

__

_ “Who did you call in?” _

__

“Remember that conversation about parental figures?”

__

_ “Who did you call in.”_ Oracle demanded.

__

Batgirl looks up, “Take a guess.” A moment later, a man in red and blue lands next to her. “Hiya Supes.”

__

_” Oh my God. This was supposed to be a covert op! You called in the least covert person!”_

__

“What’re you talking about? Superman is here of his own accord.”

__

The alien had the sense to look a little guilty, “I saw you on the news and you looked to be in trouble.”

__

_ “Wait, who did you call in then…” _

__

“Let’s see, who would I call in for assistance in taking down a few dozen armed men?” Batgirl asks rhetorically. 

__

“Superman does seem like the logical answer to that question,” Deathstroke states, strolling up to the pair, a trigger in his hand.

__

“Covertly.”

__

“Ah, then Superman would be the worse answer to that question.” Deathstroke corrects. Superman looks like he wants to argue but can’t actually argue a fairly true point. He could only be covert as Clark Kent, really. Superman wasn’t really equipped to be, covert.

__

“What’s the trigger for?” Batgirl asks.

__

“Oh, this?” Deathstroke asks, holding up the trigger, “Nothing much,” he says as he pushes it. Gas releases from all around them. “Just gives New York a taste of fear gas.” 

__

“Cool. The kind that dissipates on its own, right?”

__

“Yeah, I fancy my head attached to my body.” Deathstroke does a two finger salute before disappearing.

__

“I don’t know why I didn’t think you had planned for this, you guys plan for everything,” Superman says, shaking his head.

__

“Wel, I could use a ride, mine is kind of useless. And rigged to blow.” Batgirl says, holding up a trigger of her own.

__

“Gotham?”

__

_ “I’ll tell the others to head off without you”_ Oracle states.

__

“If you’d be so kind,” Batgirl says and Superman wraps an arm around her waist and takes off. As they’re doing so, Batgirl blows her bike up, its best not to leave anything that can be traced back to her out of the mask. Minutes later, Superman was dropping her off on top of the Clocktower. “Thank you!”

__

“No problem” Superman says with a smile before flying off.

__

Batgirl heads down to Oracle’s floor in the clocktower. She comes to stand beside Oracle. “ETA?”

__

“A few more minutes. The Winter Soldier will be taken to the manor.”

__

“Good. I’m going to head off to Patrol.”

__

“No, you’re going to head to bed.”

__

“It’s not even midnight. And we’re short four heroes.”

__

“Maybe. But we can be short five. I know you’ve been running yourself ragged to help the Assassins you’ve adopted, but you need to sleep.”

__

“... I’m going to see Quinn.” With that, Batgirl leaves the tower.

__

__

“Ooo, sounds neat,” Quinn states, braiding Batgirl’s wig.

__

“Yes, I’m unsure if a psychiatrist is necessary but,” Damian says, painting Quinn’s toenails.

__

“Oh, honey. It’s more like if a psychiatrist is wanted. One is definitely needed. But, you need one who knows about your other life and can keep a secret. And that’s me! I’ll be glad to help.”

__

“Thank you, I am worried about him.”

__

“He’s been brainwashed for seventy years, I’d be worried if you weren’t.”

__

“Mm,”

__

“Hey, could we take off the cowl and dye your hair? I think you’d look great as a blonde.” Quinn asks.

__

“No.”

__

“To the blonde or the cowl?” Quinn asks but continues before Damian could answer, “how about green? Not Mister J green, how about arrow green? Or, or Ivy green?” Quinn gasps as though she just realized the best thing ever, “We could make you a redhead! Match this nice wig.”

__

“Absolutely not.”

__

“Pleeeeaaaaaaasssssssse? What colour do you want? How about Nightwing blue?” Quinn had her lip jutting out and puppy dog eyes out in full effect. Damian hates how easily he caves. He unlatches the cowl and pulls it off. “Yes! Nightwing blue it is! Aw, you’ll look so cute little D!” Damian groans as she heads off to get the dying kit. Why did she have to pick up Richard’s nickname for him of all things? Well, he’s sure Richard will be surprised at his hair when he gets back.

__

“You know, you have really dark hair so if we want a true Nightwing blue, we’re gonna have to bleach it! And hey, if you like your bleach blonde hair we can just go straight to true blonde!” Quinn calls before coming out with plastic dishes, brushes and some bottles.

__

“I am never going blonde.”

__

“Don’t knock it til you try it, Ian!”

__

“Do _not_ call me that.”

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somehow, this has turned into Damian's adventures as Batgirl. Should I change the title? Because Jason has not been featured in this as an MC since the first chapter. Also yes, Harley knows, because I say so. 
> 
> I'm open to any suggestions on how to continue this really. 
> 
> also, is it obvious I write most of this while sleep deprived?
> 
> Anywho, bug me on [tumblr ](https://auguralsanguinary.tumblr.com/), don't really have anything better to do and anon is always on!


	3. Hey I changed the title of the entire fic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian and Steph go shopping, Damian crashes a Queen & Stark meeting, and we get to meet the parents!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forewarning, Ollie might seem off if you know him from the comics because my only experience with him is the first 2 seasons of Arrow and the Gotham Resistance comics (which I didn't even read all of). So. I'm sorry. And Barry is kind of a mix between the Flash show and JL movie flash. 
> 
> So sorry.

“Why do we have to go shopping so I can go shopping with that gross old man?” Stephanie asks, she and Damian were walking through Gotham Mall, there was apparently a set destination in Damian’s mind but he refused to share. “And why are _ you_ with me?”

Damian clicks his tongue before responding, “Because you’re expected to be a rich socialite, you need to look like a socialite. Meaning you need something other than an outfit straight off a Walmart mannequin.”

“I- okay, first off, Walmart doesn’t _have_ mannequins, second off, this outfit isn’t from Walmart. It’s from, well, the stores around us.” Stephanie gestures, she bought most of her clothing from this mall.

“Clearly indicating your horrible taste.”

“Hey, I’m not the one with bleach bottle-blonde hair right now.” Stephanie defends, ruffling the yellow hair on top of Damian’s head. He didn’t look the best. Then again, few people looked good with bleached hair.

“Blame Quinn.” 

“Mm, sure, she held you down and made you a blonde.” Stephanie wouldn’t actually be surprised if that’s what happened. She didn’t think Damian would willingly dye his hair.

“Actually, we agreed on blue but she claimed we had to let the bleach sit for a while. I’m not entirely convinced she’s telling the truth.” 

She wasn’t. Steph had dyed enough hair to know that no, you did not need to let the bleached hair sit. You just needed to let the hair dry before dying it. 

“Oh well, at least we match now. And will you finally tell me where we’re going?” Stephanie asks.

“Yes, we’re here,” Damian states, stopping and pointing to a casual high-end store Stephanie had never been inside of. The cheaper shirts were probably a few hundred dollars. But, it wasn’t her money she was spending. Damian went up and talked to an attendant and gestured for her to follow him to the back of the store, by the change rooms. “They will retrieve and assemble some outfits that will be appropriate for your outing, all you have to do is try them on and critique them.”

“Did you arrange this ahead of time?”

“Of course, I’m not a barbarian.”

“Right,” Stephanie says, rolling her eyes, the kid was just a demon, “Why are you here? I’d think Tim or someone adult would be here with me, not you.”

Damian clicks his tongue, “This is part of my punishment for bringing home six assassins without telling Father beforehand.”

“I mean, Babs told him about five minutes before you were landing about the first five, but yeah, you probably should’ve told him.” Stephanie says and some people walk into one of the dressing room, putting up dresses, shirts, skirts and pants all arranged in outfits. “Is this all of them, or…”

“That is all of them, Ms. Brown. We will bring more should you decide none of them fit your… taste.” An attendant says before leaving.

“Did he just insult me?”

“Potentially. Your entire outfit does cost under a hundred dollars.”

“You know, most people consider that a success.”

“Most people being the commonwealth. You are playing a socialite. Outfits should be a minimum of two hundred dollars.” 

“Dear god what is up with you rich people.” 

“Start trying things on, I don’t want to be here all day. There are other things to do.” Damian says, shooing her into the change room.

“Yeah, yeah,” Stephanie grumbles and steps into the room, it was more spacious than most of the change rooms she’d been in was, with two walls covered in floor-length mirrors. Grabbing a purple dress off the hanger, she starts changing, it was going to be a long day regardless of what the demon brat wanted.

After what felt like all day but was only a couple of hours, Stephanie had three high-end outfits that had both her and Damian’s approval.

“Why three?” Stephanie asks as they walk to a shoe store, she now had to have stupidly expensive shoes. Honestly, she had never really done this before, whenever she went out with Tim she would just wear her normal clothing, it wasn’t important that she looked like she was rich because, she wasn’t. Dressing up for a gala or fundraiser was different, they were events where such a dress code was expected. But suit shopping? She’s done that with Jason in pajamas. All this shopping didn’t seem necessary.

“Depending on the weather, the day and where he decides is necessary to go,” Damian answers simply as if it was obvious. Which no, no it wasn’t.

“Why do I even have to go suit shopping with him? Just message him saying I was drunk and that he can send me the bill. And by me, I mean Bruce.” The pair enter the shoe store, looking around.

“Ask Gordon. She has a plan.” Damian takes them to the heel area.

“Why does it have to involve me?” Stephanie whines. Sending the demon brat around the world? Whatever, he did that himself when he was ten. Making her take a creepy old man suit shopping? Whyyyyyyyy?

“Because you offered to take Pierce suit shopping. Honestly, Brown, don’t be so childish.”

“Did you seriously just tell me not to be childish?” He was _literally_ a child.

“Yes. You are acting as such. Do you not have any shoes from Gala’s past?”

“Maybe? I tend to leave them at the manor.” Stephanie shrugs, she didn’t need five hundred dollar shoes in her day to day life.

“Of course you do.” Damian rolled his eyes and held out his arm, “Give me the clothes, go find shoes.” Stephanie unloads the garment bag and the paper bag the cashier had given them at the other place onto Damian. 

“What, you don’t want to have someone pick out my shoes?”

“You’ll be walking in them, find some that are comfortable, cute and go with your outfits. Heels would be preferable but stylish flats or boots may work.”

“You giving me fashion advice is still the weirdest thing about today.” Stephanie says before going to look at the shoes, forcing herself to not look at any of the prices. She grabs a few kitten heel shoes and a couple high heel shoes she fell in love with at first glance. After trying on the shoes and walking around in them a bit, she decides on one pair of the high heels and one pair of the kitten heels.

Having gotten a big bag from the shoe place, Stephanie dumps all the high end clothing into it so they aren’t carrying around so much stuff. “We done?”

“I believe so, you can borrow jewelry if its necessary. But you also must set up a date.”

“Ugh,” Stephanie groans, “Let’s go the food court, maybe I’ll be able to text him without throwing up.”

“Wouldn’t being surrounded by food make you more likely to throw up?” Damian asks but follows as she heads to the food court.

“Shut up.”

After getting ‘unhealthy sludge’ as Damian called it and sitting down, Stephanie opens up the message she’s been starting and stopping to Pierce. She didn’t really know what to say. Deciding that she might have a better idea after eating, she puts her phone down and digs into the greasy goodness.

“Alright,” Stephanie declares once they were both done eating, “Time to text the old bastard.” Stephanie picks up her phone, opening to the unsent message and Pierce’s number.

“You know, Gordon will figure out a different plan if you really hate the thought of interacting with him that much,” Damian says, and Steph can see that he’s trying, she’s been complaining all-day, its understandable.

“Nah, I’m fine, I just really want to complain about it. I don’t mind dealing with him, it’s not a big deal.”

“If its not a big deal, why do you complain so much?”

“Just because it’s not a big deal doesn’t mean I’m happy about doing it, it’s like when Babs first sent you out as…” Stephanie trails off, letting Damian understand what she means before continuing, “You weren’t happy about it, you complained, but you saw reason as to what she was doing and why, and did it anyway. I know why its a good idea to get close to him, I see Babs’s reasoning and agree that it’s sound, but that doesn’t mean I like it or will enjoy doing this. Now, help me write a message to him. I have no idea how to ask for a suit fitting date.” Stephanie was barely done her plea when Damian grabbed her phone typed something out and handed it back.

_ To: Pierce _   
_Hi! This is Stephanie, the drunk girl who spilled Champagne all over your Reiss suit, so sorry about that. But, I did promise to take you suit shopping and buy you a new one on my dime. So just shoot me a text on where & what your preferred suit shop (or tailor) is and what’s a good date to go shopping._

“Not awful, sounds kinda like me. Ugh, I’m going to go to DC to suit shop? Seriously?” Stephanie groans, she does _not_ want to fly over there just to shop for suits with a stuffy old guy. “And what’s a Reiss suit?”

“Well, if you know of a good suit shop in Gotham, feel free to tell him as such and ask him to join you here. And it’s a suit brand. You should know them and be able to identify them by sight alone.”

“Wait, how did you know what he was wearing?” He wasn’t even there! He was breaking into a HYDRA base!

“Pictures Brown, pictures. If you can’t recognize brands then either remove the label or when you meet him in person tell him you have an uncle who favours Reiss suits so you can recognize them but not many others.“ 

“More like any others. Why are there so many suit brands? I can’t even remember dress brands! How did this become school?”

“Stop complaining. Just change it to ‘nice suit’ and play ditzy blonde when you meet him.”

“Oh god, that’s worse, but that might be fun.” Stephanie edits the message so she doesn’t mention the suit name and sends it.

_999_

“Brown has a date with Pierce this Friday,” Damian states, walking up to his father who was seated at the Batcomputer. 

“Perhaps she’ll learn some valuable information, perhaps she’ll castrate him. Regardless, I won’t be here for it.”

“Where are you going, Father?” Damian furrows his brows in confusion.

“Off-world. There’s something that needs to be taken care of. In the meantime, I want you to try to talk to the Avengers.”

“Father?”

“It would be better if they knew more about the world around them. They’re very isolated. I’ll be back by Sunday night so I expect you to have spoken to them by then.”

“What about Barnes?”

“He can do as he pleases, I’m glad Harley is helping him.” Father looks over at Damian for the first time during that conversation and raises an eyebrow, “You’re no longer blond.”

“Oh good, you haven’t gone blind.”

“You match Dick’s costume now,” Father remarks with a small smile.

“That was Quinn’s intention.”

“Ah, product of girls night?” Damian groans.

“Why do they keep inviting me to those things? They all know I am in no way girl!” Damian exclaims, annoyed.

“You know it’s okay if you are,” Father says, a soft look in his eyes.

“I’m not.” With that, Damian storms away.

_-Friday-_

“Stark’s here.” Oliver says the moment Bruce answered his phone. The man in question, along with a couple of friends of his, was being delayed by Felicity outside Oliver’s office. 

“And what do you want me to do about that?” Which was a fair question. Gotham wasn’t exactly close to Starling City, and Batman showing up wouldn’t exactly be a solution to his Stark and co problem. There was also the issue of Batman being out of the solar system.

“Nothing, just know, I blame you.”

“Noted.”

“And I will throw you under the bus if necessary.” With that, Oliver hangs up the phone. Sighing, he turns to the glass wall between him and Felicity, and currently, Stark, Romanoff and Rogers. He waves for them to come into his office, tiredly, might as well get it over with. 

“Super important phone call?” Stark asks when he comes into the office, closely followed by his teammates.

“Well, when Wayne texts you telling to call him immediately, it tends to mean someone is on fire,” Oliver says shrugging, to be fair, that had happened three times at the manor. Bruce had never told him to call but, it still happened.

“Don’t you mean some_thing_?” Rogers asks.

“No.” Oliver says before changing the subject, “So, what brings you to Starling? Don’t you have aliens to fight or something?”

“Well, actually the aliens stopped bothering us, but, we are investigating vigilantism.”

“Oh? And what about that bring you to Starling?” Oliver was going to kill someone. He didn’t know who, but he was so killing someone. Maybe Bruce. He never wanted to deal with this bullshit. 

“Well, we heard about a Green Arrow, a Red Arrow and an Arsenal.”

Play dumb, play dumb, “I’m sure those three things exist in Starling,” Okay, maybe not _that_ dumb. Even he would’ve heard about those three vigilantes.Which, also, rude. What about Black Canary? She operated out of Starling too, most of the time. When she wasn’t with the Birds of Prey.

“They’re the names of vigilantes operating within your city.” Stark says, as though he was talking to a particularly stupid child. Not that the man actually talked to children like that, only other adults he felt were being stupid. God Oliver hated him.

“Ah, I don’t really pay attention to those things. Not really my concern. Don’t know why they would be yours.”

“So, you don’t know anything about Batgirl?” Romanoff asks, raising an eyebrow.

Ah, that’s why they’re interested. He’s definitely killing a bat now. “Not much I’m afraid. But, well, you do learn some things, being friends with Bruce.” Please don’t question that, please don’t question that. Oliver does not have an explanation planned, the words just came out.

“How does being friends with Bruce make you learn about Batgirl?” Fuck.

“Well,” Bruce was going to kill him but its the only explanation Oliver can think of, he blames Roy for those trashy magazines, “Bruce is dating Batman. And Batman works a lot with Batgirl so you learn a lot.”

“Bruce is dating who?” Stark asks and Oliver has never been more happy to have someone crash through his office window. He was less happy when he realized who it was. 

“How is your date with Pierce going?” Batgirl asks, clearly talking to someone on her comms. She was bloody and bruised, her uniform cut in places. “Ah, it’s nothing bad, just a tank and about ten SWAT teams worth of morons.” Batgirl brushes glass off of her and looks around, waving at Oliver, “What? No, they’re not in Kandaq, I’m in Starling.” There was a short pause, “I brought Black Adam with me. I’m fine. No, seriously, I’m with Ollie.” Batgirl does a double-take of the avengers, “Also some of the avengers. So, kinda safe? If it gets super bad, which it _won’t_ I promise to call in the big gun.” A pause, “Fine, _a_ big gun. Now go back to your date!” With that, it seems Batgirl ends her call and addresses the people in the room, “Hiya Ollie!”

Dear god Oliver is so happy he brought up Bruce and Batman dating because there is zero way to explain this otherwise. “Hi.” A shout of “Shazam!” comes from outside followed by loud lightning strikes, so Black Adam was definitely within Starling. Joy. Surprisingly, none of the Avengers were talking to them, Stark and Romanoff were on their phones and Rogers was looking out the window at the military in the streets. 

“They’re so persistent, I’m sorry I thought we would lose them if we left the East but they just turned more dumbasses on us. And brought out a tank.” Batgirl explains, shrugging apologetically. “But, enough about me, how’s your day going?”

“It was going fine until you crashed in through my window and brought a military down on my city.”

“Oh, well, you know who to send the bill to.” Batgirl brushes off.

“Who would he send the bill to?” Stark cuts in.

“Bruce, of course. He funds our damages. So sweet. He and Batsy are truly meant for each other.” 

Wait, what? Why is Damian, _Damian_ of all people, saying his dad is dating himself? How did he even know that that’s the excuse Oliver had gi-

Oliver thoughts stopped, and it was in that moment, that he realized he needed to sweep his office for bugs. _Again_. For the third time this quarter. 

God-fucking-Bats.

“Really?”

“Clearly he knows more than he’s letting on.” Romanoff murmurs, before Stark clears his throat and changes the subject,

“SHIELD doesn’t have any active ops going on here. Not even the last minute ones, there’s no record of any SHIELD people being deployed here.”

“Fury says there are no ops off the record here either,” Romanoff adds.

“Well, obviously,” Batgirl cuts in, “It’s HYDRA. They’re pissed because I stole their Asset.”

“Young Lady, you shouldn’t talk about things you know nothing about,” Rogers says, sounding stern and scolding. Oliver leans against his desk, this should be amusing. Damian didn’t take people scolding him as Robin well, he can’t imagine the kid will take it any better as Batgirl.

“There isn’t anything I don’t know about.”

“Okay, big claim,” Stark starts and Batgirl opens her mouth, but before she could prove that there was nothing the Bats don’t know, Felicity bursts into the office.

“Uh, sorry to interrupt but there’s a Strike team coming up, I’ve stopped the elevator a few floors down but, there’s still stairs to this floor so we have like ten minutes?”

“Oh, that means it’s time for me to go,” Batgirl says but Rogers grabs her arm when she moves to leave.

“You’re not going anywhere young lady.”

“I’ve taken you down before Rogers, don’t think I won’t do it again”

“You used tricks, they won’t work this time,” Rogers states as Romanoff pulls up a gun.

“Try something, I dare you.” She threatens, pointing the gun where Batgirl’s suit was torn.

Batgirl breaks Roger’s hold on her but only takes a step away from the man, hand moving to her belt.

“Whatever you’re grabbing, I suggest you grab it slowly.”

Oliver was pretty sure if 80% of Damian’s face wasn’t covered, he’d be displaying pure rage and anger. Although the kid was doing wonderful to show that with just his mouth.

“I’d rather not get shot in the mouth, it’s not particularly fun.” Batgirl states, malice lacing every word as she pulls out a mask that snaps onto her cowl over her mouth hole. Batgirl puts on the mask, and Oliver is pretty sure none of the Avengers see the other thing she grabbed. A small disk used to call lantern corps in case of a giant interplanetary emergency. He didn’t think Hal would’ve given Damian one of those. When Batgirl turned it on, Oliver was proven right. Because it was glowing yellow, not green. Sinestro then. Batman had mentioned Damian went on an ‘adventure’ with him some time ago. Guess the kid made an impression.

“Ah-ah-ah, what’s in your hand.” Stark orders. Guess they did notice.

“It’s a light?” Batgirl states, showing the small glowing disc.

“Hand it over.” Batgirl does so, tossing the disc to Stark just as a Strike team comes in via the conference room. Since that’s where the stairs led to.

“Hands in the air!” One of them shouts, they were all pointing guns at Batgirl. She lazily put her hands in the air. “Call off your friend down there.”

“Adam does what he wants.”

“Tell him to go home. Now.”

“Or what? You going to shoot me?” Why do people ask that? Oliver always thought it was the stupidest thing to ask. Mainly because this always happens when you say something like that. ‘This’ being a gun getting pointed at Oliver’s head.

“Or I shoot him.” The Avengers were conspicuously silent, but Oliver did note Romanoff lowered her gun and was looking at the team like a particularly hard puzzle she couldn’t figure out.

It takes a second before Batgirl moves her hand to her ear and says, “I have everything under control. Please go home.” There was a pause, “Do not fight with me on this. Just go.” Another pause, “I will be fine. Death doesn’t like me anyway.” With that Batgirl returns her hand to the air. “Happy?” The guy with a gun pointed at Oliver, who Oliver would presume is the Leader of the Strike Team glares at Batgirl for a minute before nodding. He probably got confirmation that Adam was gone. Now, whether he was gone or just de-transformed himself is a question for another time.

“What does this do?” Stark asks, fiddling with the Lantern Beacon. 

“Nononononodon’t-” Batgirl stops when the beacon goes red. “Do that.” She sighs, dropping her hands and her head.

“Hands up!” The Strike Leader orders, Batgirl doesn’t comply. A moment later a swirling red portal Oliver was like 50% was made of _blood_ opened and a giant red being stepped out, followed by a blue-black cat, hissing up a storm. “What the-” Atrocitus roars, cutting the man off and what follows can only be described as a massacre.

Batgirl walks over to Stark and turns off the beacon, pocketing it again. “I did try to tell you not to do that.” Stark seemed stuck in place, watching with horror as Atrocitus destroys the Strike Team, Dex-Starr weaving around them, clawing the eyes out of some of the men. 

It felt like hours but Oliver doubted it was more than five minutes before the entire Strike Team was dead. Dex-Starr floated over to Damian, which the kid happily cooed and scritched the cat, Atrocitus followed shortly, standing in front of Damian for a moment as the kid talked and gave love to the cat before patting him gently on the head. After that, both Red Lanterns left in a portal of was Oliver was like 70% sure was made of _blood_. Although he was unsure of _whose_.

“What. The. FUCK” Stark explains, seemingly broken from his daze.

“Uh, is SHIELD going to clean this up or should I call the cops?” Oliver asks, deliberately not looking at the dead bodies covering his office. 

“SHIELD will handle it,” Romanoff states.

“Who the fuck was that? _What_ the fuck was that?”

“That was Atrocitus and the cat was Dex-Starr. They’re part of the Red Lantern Corps.” Batgirl chirps.

“The what?”

“Their power is fueled by rage. Dex-Starr is actually from Earth but Atrocitus is from Ryut, a dead planet.” Batgirl explains happily like the pair hadn’t just massacred a bunch of people pointing guns at her a few minutes ago.

Stark stared at her for a while before stating, “I think you need therapy.”

“You need it more than me. Besides, you’re the one that called them. I was happy to wait for the Yellow Lantern Corps to show up.”

“Yellow Lantern-”

“They’re fueled by fear. Your fear, their fear,” Batgirl shrugs, “Any fear in general. They’re also sometimes called the Sinestro Corps because, well, Sinestro is their leader.”

“How many corps are there?”

“Well,” Batgirl brings up her hands and starts counting on her fingers as she lists, “There’s the Red Lanterns, the Yellow Lanterns, the Green Lanterns, the Blue Lanterns, the Black Lanterns, the Orange Lanterns, the Ultraviolet Lanterns, the White Lanterns, the Indigo Lanterns -although they call themselves a tribe-, the Alpha Lanterns, the Star Sapphire Lanterns and I think that’s it so,” Batgirl looks down at her hands, “Eleven.”

“Where are they based?”

“Space.”

“What do they even do?”

“Well, they’re the guardians of the universe, well they’re supposed to be, but, they’re fueled by strong emotions, so some, like the Red Lanterns, the Yellow Lanterns, the Black Lanterns, the Orange Lanterns, and the Ultra Violet Corps are bad. The Star Sapphire Corps aren’t _bad_ per se but they mainly go after their own interests, so they’re not _good_ either. So like, half the lantern corps are bad.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“But the ones that aren’t, fight against the ones that are bad and protect the universes.” Batgirl finishes with a shrug.

“You called the evil ones here?” Romanoff questions.

“The good ones don’t like to be bothered.” Which was fair, they did say only to bother them if the world was ending. 

“Jesus Christ.” Stark repeats and Oliver was starting to wonder if that was his new mantra.

“Don’t suppose you’d be willing to come in to explain a bit more?” Romanoff asks. That was unlikely.

“Only if Iron man is willing to fly me to his tower. I didn’t really get to bask in its awesomeness last time.” But it was apparently happening.

“I’m going to go to lunch,” Oliver states leaving his office, there was only so much someone can deal within a day, okay?

Damian wasn’t really surprised Queen was leaving. Most of the superhero community knew he was Batgirl and the majority all get weirded out whenever he acts like Barbara in front of them. 

“Give me five minutes, I’ll get the suit here,” Stark says, typing away on his phone. Damian nods, bouncing on his feet.

“What did you mean they’re HYDRA?” Widow asks, the Captain sighs, looking like he doesn’t want to have this conversation.

“They’re HYDRA? I don’t know how to explain it further.” Which, Damian did actually, but, he didn’t see why it was necessary, how was it so hard to understand they’re part of a terrorist organization?

“HYDRA was destroyed in the 1940s. They’re not HYDRA.” The Captain states.

“Uh, hate to break it to you, but HYDRA was never destroyed. You might’ve destroyed the German branch but there were branches in Russia, Sokovia and even one in the States. Control over HYDRA was transferred over to the USSR branch when Red Skull died, there they hid and licked their wounds, nurturing their strength until they could take over. They’ve been in SHIELD since its creation. Why do you think we deal with ARGUS and not them? Why do you think we’ve made sure they don’t know jack shit about us? SHIELD is HYDRA and HYDRA is SHIELD. Get it through your head that all your sacrifice did was safe the eastern seaboard and did jack fucking shit to HYDRA.

_ “Wow, someones cranky.” _ Gordon says over the comms. He had forgotten she was there.

“I’m annoyed. Adults are truly morons if they think they know everything.” 

“Says the kid who claimed to know everything less than an hour ago,” Stark mutters.

“Fair. But I don’t talk about things I don’t know about. I listen, I learn. Then I speak and I never presume something is gone just because no one talks about it. Otherwise, I’d presume you didn’t have PTSD, Mr. Stark.” 

_”Okay, reel yourself in Batgirl.” _

Damian shrugs, “People come back to life. Organizations will rise from their ashes. Nothing is ever gone forever and don’t ever presume your problem has gone away. Because it never has.”

“You are one pessimistic kid.”

“I’ve been trained-”

_”Woahwoahwoahwoah! Backstory. Nix.” _ Gordon cuts him off and Damian realizes her point. Robin was already well known for being trained as an assassin from birth. 

“- to fight since I was a kid. Kind of necessary when you grow up in Gotham. Shit doesn’t get better. It just gets worse. People go from bank robbers to murderers overnight and back again the next. One day someone wants your blood sprayed against an alley wall the next they’re protecting you with their life then turning around and killing your brother. “Damian pauses and swallows, “I’m not a pessimist Mr. Stark. I’m a realist, but I’m from Gotham so I suppose to you it’s the same thing.”

“Jesus fucking Christ. Why does anyone live there?”

“It’s home. We were born there, we will die there, and kick the ass of anyone who tries to make us leave. Why stay in New York when it has one of the highest crime rates in America, Aliens invade, you have vigilantes on every street corner? It’s home.” Damian shrugs. 

_ “I can’t tell if this is Dick’s influence or if you’ve been gassed with something.” _

“Oh, shut up Oracle. I haven’t slept in a week.”

_ “I thought I sent you to bed a few nights ago!” _

“Yes, and I went to Quinn. And, Quinn decided it was time for girls night.”

_”Ohhhh, that explains that batshit night. “ _

“Yeah, never again.” A moment later, iron man armour shows up encasing Stark.

“Alright, Rides here. You two good in the quinjet?” Stark asks, stepping forward and wrapping an arm around Damian’s waist.

“We’ll catch up with you.” Widow states and Ironman takes off. Damian clings to the armour, he has no desire to be dropped while going this high at this speed.

Damian looks around the room he was dropped off in. He was waiting for Stark to get out of the suit so they can go to the floor with the other avengers. But for now, he’s just surveying the room.

“Alright you tyke, let’s go,” Stark says and Damian dutifully follows the man into an elevator. It starts moving without him saying anything so Damian presumes he either told the AI before where they were going or the elevator only had one stop.

When they stop and disembark the elevator, its to what looks like a communal room, with a full kitchen on one side and a seating area with a TV on the other.

“Are you hungry?” Hawkeye asks from the kitchen.

“Don’t eat anything he makes.” Stark immediately warns.

“You had questions?” Damian asks, following Stark to the seating area and sitting down on one of the chairs. Stark sat on the couch.

“What’s your name?”

“Batgirl.”

“What’s your real name?”

Damian purses his lips, looking like he didn’t want to answer.

_” Sly Wilson. Fake identity all set up. _ Gordon states. Which, really? He’s Slade’s daughter?

“You said you would answer all my questions.” Damian huffs out a breath, pretending to be annoyed before answering,

“Sly Wilson.”

“Sly Wilson. Okay. Do you legally exist?” Stark asks, typing away at his tablet. Damian rolls his eyes, not that anyone could see it.

“There won’t be any pictures of me. I was homeschooled and didn’t get out much.”

“Father is Slade Wilson, Mother unknown. Slade Wilson, the mercenary known as Deathstroke, or the Terminator. Never failed a contract.” Stark reads, before looking up at Damian, “You were raised by a mercenary?”

“Uh-huh. Know a thousand ways to kill you without even getting up from my seat.”

“Okayyyy. Please don’t.”

“Oh, I follow Batman’s code now. So I don’t kill.” 

“But you can.”

“Everyone can kill. Even a duck.”

“A duck isn’t sitting a couple of feet away from me right now?”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Are you part duck?”

“It appears questioning is going well without us,” Romanoff states as she and Rogers come in.

“It’s going wonderfully,” Stark says as the pair come closer. Romanoff sits by Stark on the couch while Rogers remains standing. “Her name is Sly Wilson, her father is a mercenary and a terrifying one at that. Genetically modified by the Australian government to be a lot like Steve. But ten times more terrifying because he’s a killer for hire.”

“Well, Sly, would you take off your mask?” Romanoff asks.

“No.”

“We know your name. And, anything shared here is kept between us. We won’t tell anyone.”

“No, I can’t. The back of my head is bleeding and my cowl is keeping pressure on it, if I take it off there will be blood everywhere. It’ll look like you killed someone.”

“Um, shouldn’t we take you to the med bay then?” Rogers asks, which, was a fair question.

“No, I’ll be fine so long as the cowl stays on.”

“Um. I still think we should take you to the med bay. Or if you don’t want to go there we can bring Bruce up and he can stitch you up.”

“Thank you, but I will be fine. Your questions?”

“You mentioned the lantern corps earlier. Can you tell us a bit more about them?” Romanoff asks while Stark just stared at Damian, seemingly disturbed.

“Well, there’s not much more to tell. They’re a bunch of beings who have strong emotions and were chosen by power rings. Not much more to know. “ Damian shrugs.

“How old are you?”

“Thirteen? That’s public information Mr. Stark,” Damian didn’t really know why he was asking that.

“How long have you been training to be,” Stark just gestured to Damian. Probably meaning his costume.

“To be what, Mr. Stark?” 

“A vigilante.”

“A couple of years.”

“How long have you been training in general?”

“For what Ms Romanoff?”

“Just, in general.”

“Well, I’ve been training for as long as I can remember. Daddy has a lot of enemies, and he almost lost one kid to them before. He likes me to be prepared.” Damian says, ignoring Gordon’s laughter.

_” Oh I’m so glad I’m recording this. You don’t even call B, daddy. You don’t even call him dad.” _ Damian ignores Gordon.

“Right.” Stark looks down at his tablet and reads, “Joseph. Got kidnapped and had his vocal cords cut.” 

“So your dad trained you to protect you. That’s nice. But now you use that training to fight crime.”

“Was there a question in that?”

“Does your father know what you do?”

“Yes.” 

“Does he approve?”

_ “Uh, hate to interrupt but Flash needs to talk to you.” _ Damian holds up a hand towards Romanoff and puts the other to his head.

“Put him through”

“Fuck. I forgot to check her for comms.” Stark mutters.

_ “Hey, uh, you know Batman’s parents pretty well, right?” _

“They’re dead. Not much to know.”

_” I know, I meant, you know what they look like, what they were like, right?” _

“As much as I can without ever interacting with them.” 

_ “Right so, I have a temporal dimensional anomaly. And the people that came through look a lot like Batman’s parents. But, I would like a professional opinion. So, where are you?” _

“Avengers Tower?” Damian answers before he fully processes what Allen just said, the man talks fast okay? “Wait- don’t-” Damian stops talking when he feels himself get picked up and super speed on his back. “Pick me up.” Damian finishes, glaring at Allen.

“Sorry, but, I need help.” He says, gesturing to the two people in a cell by them. Looking around Damian realizes they’re in STAR Labs, at their Meta-holding area. He thinks, he’s never actually been down here before. 

Damian looks over and sees two people who look like Thomas and Martha Wayne. They were most likely at a party before they were transported to this dimension considering how dressed up they were. They were also taking being detained pretty well, playing slap apparently. Damian raises his eyebrow when Martha slaps Thomas’s face instead of his hand and he cries out,

“You’re supposed to slap my hand!” While Martha just leans back laughing.

“See? I don’t know what they’re supposed to be like and Batman is off-world so, help?”

“I was busy, Flash. Father requested I talk to the Avengers, tell them a bit more about us.”

“Well,this was an emergency!”

“Send them back.”

“Ah, well, you see,” Flash drops into a whisper “we can’t”

“What do you mean you can’t?” Damian whispers back.

“Their dimension collapsed. They don’t have a home anymore.” Damian sighs.

“Where are they from?”

“Earth 32A. Their Earth was a lot like ours-”

“I know. That’s what the ‘A’ means, dumbass. You made that system.” Damian huffs, “I take it father is the one who died?”

“No, actually, remember how I said it was a temporal anomaly too? Their Earth is a few decades behind ours, so they haven’t had any kids yet.”

“Hmm” Damian hums and walks up to the pair who were talking. “What were your professions?”

“I was a Doctor, and ran a multibillion-dollar corporation.” Thomas supplies.

“I was a housewife.”

Neither was inaccurate. Damian turned around. “Talk to Oracle. Have her give you directions to the Lake house, go a floor below the batcave there and leave them in the cells there. We’ll send Nightwing and Agent A to talk to them. But first, take me back to New York.” Flash nods and picks up Damian once again, when they get to Avenger’s tower he leaves Damian in the middle of the floor. Everyone was standing. Probably trying to figure out where he went.

“What the fuck.” Stark states.

“Sorry about that. Flash had an emergency.” Damian says, returning to his chair.

“Flash?” Romanoff asks.

“He’s a speedster. Super speed, accelerated healing, brainpower, the works.”

“Interesting. What was his emergency?”. 

“Dimensional Disturbance.” Damian was _not_ explaining time travel to these people.

“Dimensional Disturbance? Like different dimensions like multiverse theory?” Stark asks, stepping forward.

“Yep. The Flash is capable of dimensional travel. There are an infinite amount of dimensions, none identical to another. I don’t know much about it though. Sorry. Did you have any more questions?”

“Who is Batman?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“You said you’d answer all my questions.”

“ ‘I can’t tell you that’ is an answer, Mr. Stark. Who Batman is is none of your concern.”

“I think it is very much our concern.”

Romanoff holds up a hand to Stark, indicating for him to stop. “Your stories contradict each other.” Damian remains silent, letting her talk. “You said before your father was a cop, but you just said he’s a mercenary. You say you grew up in Gotham but Wilson has never been based in Gotham. So, which is the truth? Or is none of it true?”

“Slade Wilson is my father. That’s not a secret in my civilian life. But he didn’t raise me. My mother gave me to a family in Gotham. Dad’s life isn’t exactly child-friendly. His eldest died in his arms, Joey is mute, his other daughter was tortured. Mother did what she thought was best and never told him he had fathered another child. The family I lived with, the dad was a cop. But we did DNA tests in school and it came out who my real father was. And now the family that raised me is dead. Because Dad’s life caught up with me.” Damian purposely put strain on his voice, like he was trying not to cry, “Happy?” When no one responded Damian moved on, “If you don’t have anymore questions, I’ll be taking my leave.” He says, pulling out his phone, Gordon would still be busy with Flash and the Waynes. He texts one of the Supers to come pick him up from Avengers tower. He gets an immediate response of ‘5 seconds!’

“You can stay here if you want. You shouldn’t- you’re thirteen. You shouldn’t be alone.” Stark offers.

“Who said I was alone? I have a new family.” Damian says before jumping out the window, he free falls for a second before Supergirl grabs him and flies him to Gotham, specifically the Lake house. “Thanks for the ride!” He chirps.

“No problem. But I was told to invite you to girls night, this Tuesday at 8, in National City.”

“You do know I’m not actually a girl, right?”

“Yeah. Be there!” With that, Supergirl flies off. Damian groans.

“Oh, what a hardship, being invited to girls night.” Grayson remarks standing in the doorway to the lake house.

Damian moves into the house saying “Shut up Grayson,” when he passed by, pulling off his cowl, and Grayson immediately moves to check his head. Clearly, Gordon told him of the injury. Most of the blood was dried and scabbed.

“Shouldn’t have gone with the Avengers, their base is pretty public, you could’ve gone there some other time. “ Grayson mutters, shaking his head.

“I was fine Grayson. It is a minor wound but head wounds bleed a lot. Or have you managed to not gain any in your time as a vigilante?” Damian pulls down the top of the Batgirl bodysuit as they move through the lakehouse.

“I know Dami but you also fought a _tank_. “ Grayson says as they head down to the Batcave. 

“I had Adam with me, I was fine. The people downstairs, are they…” Damian grabs a change of clothes, pulling on a shirt and stripping out of the Batgirl suit completely, and pulling on pants. He sets the Batgirl costume on a table.

Grayson puts the Batgirl cowl on the table too, “Alfred thinks so. They seem harmless. Well, as harmless as they ever were. They’re not vigilantes or supervillains, they want to meet Bruce but he won’t be back for another couple of days.”

“Hmm, they seemed like a nice couple. Not like they can go home.”

“What do you mean? Sit. I want to clean your head.”

“Allen didn’t tell you?” Damian says, sitting down in a chair while Grayson grabbed the medical cleaning supplies and some suturing equipment.

“Tell me what?” Grayson asks as he starts to clean the blood off of Damian’s head.

“Allen said their dimension collapsed. They have no home.”

“And you decided to _ lock them up in our subbasement?_” Grayson asks.

“I was busy. You could’ve let them out at any time, I didn’t say they had to stay locked up.”

“We did let them out. They’re upstairs sleeping. Do they know?”

“Given how Allen discussed it, I’m going to say no.” 

“Oh, it’s not that big of a cut. Only a few inches.” Grayson says and starts closing up the wound.

“Yay.” Damian deadpans, “You want to tell our grandparents that they’re stuck here?”

“Let’s wait until they meet Bruce. Before Babs fakes a medical doctorate for Thomas she wants him to take a medical exam so he’s not out of date.”

“That’s smart.”

“Mmhmm.” Grayson hums as he finishes closing up the wound. He wipes away the blood that came out but otherwise, Damian was fine. “So,” Grayson starts as Damian gets up and turns to the older, “I heard you called Slade daddy,” Damian glares at Grayson and quickly turns on his heels, toward the small medical area. “Oh come on, it’s not-” Grayson stops speaking when he realizes what drawer Damian was rooting around in, slowly backing away. “Now let’s-”

“I WILL CUT YOU GRAYSON!” Damian shouts, chasing after his brother with a bone saw. Who screams and runs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lantern beacon can call out to any of the lanterns, but, it automatically set to yellow for Damian because Sinestro is the one who gave it to him. If Hal or Kyle or Guy had given it to him, it would automatically go green, if Atrocitus gave it to him, it would automatically go red. But it can go to the other colours. 
> 
> Also I've only seen Atrocitus teleport?? Idk if other lanterns do it but I only know of him going through weird blood portals? And yeah, Ollies percentage is purposefully going up. And Damian earned Atrocitus's favour purely because of Dex-Starr. Those two are attached and Damian is a Disney Princess with how much he gets animals on his side.
> 
> You can question me however you like in the comments, if I have a answer, i'll answer. Also, bug me on tumblr if you prefer to be anonymous.It's linked in other chapters. I'm too tired to link it rn.


	4. I'm sorry?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilson family outing, Damian deals with the Avengers more, a different rumour is started, and we get to see Jon again!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, Grant is alive because when I wrote the entire Wilson family part, I 100% forgot he was dead. Idky, but, I forgot. So, he's alive. Maybe some Multiverse mumbo-jumbo or just straight-up revival, eh, I'll deal with it later.
> 
> Uh, Damian keeps the same voice throughout his interactions with the Wilson family and the Avengers when he's being Sly, back to normal voice when he's Damian. Joey can't talk, but I figured we probably all know that so I didn't always put 'signed' when he talks, so, he doesn't talk at all, I just didn't want to write 'signed' too much.

“This has got to be the weirdest family shit ever.” Grant states, all the Wilson children were sitting at a booth in a Burger King in New York. Damian was with them, but he definitely didn’t look like his normal self. He had a long white wig on pulled back in a braid, a baseball cap on denoting some Gotham team, make-up on that softened his more masculine features and made him look more feminine, contacts changing his eye color, along with glasses and was just all around looking like a girl and not much like himself.

“I don’t know, I like having a sister.” Rose says, munching on her fries.

“I don’t think that’s the weird part.” Joey signs before he starts eating.

“The weird part would be that we’re eating together so we can be spied on.” Damian inputs with a cheerful voice. Not his, but also not Barbara’s. A distinctly female, bubbly voice. 

“He-She- They get it.” Grant says, stumbling over pronouns.

“‘She’ works fine Grant.” Damian chimes.

“Hey, why ‘Sly’?” Rose asks, none of them were really named after Slade in that way. Joey was the closest with his name being Slade’s middle name, but otherwise, no.

“Gordon went on a bunch of baby naming websites. She liked ‘Sly’ the best. Her runner up was ‘Winter’ and honestly, I’m not sure if that would’ve been preferable.”

“I don’t know, having two thirds of your name being based off of dad or having alliteration?” Grant says, moving his hands like they were a weighing scale. Damian, in turn, shoved his burger at Grant’s face, Grant takes the burger out of Damian’s hands, taking a bite and asking,“And why did we bring a vegetarian to a burger joint?” while chewing on the burger.

“Gross.”

“Why did we come here? You’re not eating anything.” Rose asks, stealing some of his fries, Joey just straight up steals the carton.

“Stark seemed to like the place. Personally I feel like I need ten showers.” Damian says, shuddering.

“Nah, that’s just New York.” Joey signs, before shoving fries into his mouth.

“So, any boys you fancy? Girls?” Rose asks, and Damian raises an eyebrow.

“Is this what you normally talk about?”

“No, mostly it plans for murder, general death and stuff that happens on jobs.” Grant says, and gets a kick in the leg for it.

“But, if we’re getting spied on we have to at least pretend to be a normal family. Can’t be talking about jobs, death and vigilantism”

“And talking about crushes is what normal families do?” Joey asks, clearly confused.

Everyone shrugs, no one at the table had ever really had a ‘normal’ family. In any sense of the word.

“It’s what happens on tv shows and movies.” Rose explains.

“So, who do you have a crush on?” Grant asks.

“... Let’s talk about something else.”

“Todd.” Damian states. 

“I’m sorry, you have a crush on Jason?” Grant asks, confused.

“No. Rose has a crush on Todd.”

“Dude!” Rose exclaims

“How do you know that?” Grant asks while Joey laughs so hard the soda he just drank came out his nose. 

A moment later Joey just signs “Ow” and holding his nose.

“Todd talks about it.” Damian says, handing napkins over to Joey.

“He _talks_ about it?” Rose exclaims.

“He _talked_ about rejecting you.” Damian specifies

“Oooo, you got rejected?” Grant asks, far too amused with the situation.

“I hate having a sister.” Rose grumbles, “and it’s not funny!”

“You have a crush on the guy who puts severed heads in duffle bags, loses at Mario Kart, watches Saturday Morning cartoons and is a giant fucking nerd.” Damian deadpans. 

“It’s painfully hilarious.” Joey signs with a smile

“Why did I start this conversation?”

“You wanted us to be a normal family.” Damian chirps, noticing Romanoff and Barton enter the Burger King. Romanoff was on the phone, talking to someone. He wasn’t the only one, the entire table took note of the spies. 

“Does anyone else thing Black Widow kind of looks like mom?” Grant asks.

“What?” Joey signs, while everyone just looked at Grant, confused.

“Yeah, change the red hair to brown, she actually looks kind of like mom.” Grant says, pulling up a picture of his and Joey’s mother on his phone. Joey looked at it then peered over the booth at the Widow.

“He’s not wrong.” Joey signs.

“Doesn’t mean he’s right.” 

“I’m going to go get Widow’s autograph before this turns into an argument.” Rose says, grabbing a notebook from her bag and a pen before getting up and walking over to Barton and Romanoff. Rose clears her throat and Romanoff turns her attention to her. ”Uh, hi, I was wondering if I could get your autograph? I’m a huge fan.”

“Of course, what’s your name?” Romanoff asks, pocketing her phone without hanging up. Rose could hear Tony Stark through the speaker, gushing about Romanoff being asked for an autograph. Rose hands over the book, opened to a blank page and the pen, which Romanoff accepts.

“Oh, uh, Rose, Rose Wilson,” Rose states, purposely stumbling over her words. She sees slight hesitation before Romanoff starts writing on the book.

“What a nice name. Are you here with your family? Or friends?” Romanoff asks as she signs.

“Uh huh, my brothers and my sister.” Rose looks back at them to see Damian filming Grant doing something ridiculous enough she’s 90% Joey is possessing him to make him do it. “They’re the ones being absolutely ridiculous right now.” Rose states, turning her attention back to Romanoff, who was also looking at them. Her eyes were calculating, observant and cataloguing before she realized Rose’s attention was back on her and they changed to curiosity.

“They seem nice.” Romanoff says, handing the book and pen back over.

“They’re not. Sly is an absolute asshole.” Romanoff’s eyebrows raise minutely in surprise, “Yeah, I know, you interact with her she seems sweet and nice, but I swear to God she’s a demon.” Rose saw the moment Romanoff processed what she said, what it could be taken as. Shock, suspicion, denial, calm.

“I doubt she’s that bad.”

“She knocks you out upon first meeting and you say ‘she’s not that bad’ ?” Rose asks, she doesn’t really care to play the long game. Not right now.

“So she is-”

“How many Sly Wilson’s do you think are out there?”

“Around five in America according to Tony. Why reveal her identity outright, she seems close to secret identities.”

“She is, but what does it matter if you know who she is? You’re not much of a threat. Not you, nor your little avengers. I would love to see you try to take her down, you’d be defeated before you could land a single blow.”

“I think you overestimate your sister.”

“And I think you underestimate her. You can know her name, know her face, but, what do you really know about her? A sob story she concocted on the spot? Lies and manipulation? A voice that isn’t even hers?” Rose was pretty thankful for Oracle giving them partial scripts for this encounter. Mainly points to jump off of. Because honestly? The scariest thing about Damian is that he collects adults like Batman collects kids. Which, she supposes is terrifying when those adults are supersoldiers, aliens, wizards, lanterns, etc. with the power to absolutely demolish anyone who threatens Damian. Like Atrocitus, with that entire Strike team. Which Widow bore witness to. Also his animals. But that’s more of a ‘you hurt them I kill you’ type thing.

“A name and a face can tell you a lot.” Before Rose could ask Romanoff to expand on that, Joey rushed out the door, closely followed by Grant who was yelling that he was dead. Damian was chucking their uneaten food and grabbing Rose’s bag before walking to her and Romanoff.

“We’re leaving.” He states simply, handing the bag over.

“Why? If they want to kill each other, that’s their problem.” Rose says, dumping the book and pen in the bag before pulling the strap onto her shoulder.

“I would like to eat something that isn’t processed dreck.”

_ “Give me to the kid Romanoff!” _ Stark shouts, it was audible to all of them, even though he was in her pocket and not on speakerphone. Romanoff rolls her eyes and pulls out her phone, handing it to Damian. 

Damian gives her a ‘really?’ look before accepting the phone. “You won’t change my mind.”

_ “Kid there is something wrong with your mind! How can you not love Burger King?” _

“I’m a vegetarian.” Damian states before hanging up and handing the phone back to Romanoff. “We’re leaving.” He repeats, grabbing Rose’s arm and pulling her out with him.

“Why did we need to leave?” Rose asks as the pair walk down the street, readjusting their arms so they were linked.

“You were being watched.”

“That’s why we were there in the first place.”

“Not by the avengers. It wasn’t SHIELD or HYDRA. I think it was one of Slade’s enemies.”

“Great, I’ll go warn Joey and Grant.” Rose says, unlinking their arms.

“Wait, give me the book. Widow put a tracker on it.” 

“She wasn’t very subtle,” Rose hands over the book before booking it across the street to find her brothers.

“When is she ever?” Damian mutters, walking to the bus stop and taking a seat, opening Rose’s book and flipping through it. Numbers, letters, code and some autographs like Widow’s. Probably an old job book. He flips until he finds Widows.

_ Rose Wilson, loved your work in France.  
Black Widow. _

Damian smiles a little, Romanoff recognized her. Not too surprising, none of the Wilson’s were fond of secret identities.

“Whatcha reading there kid?” A very familiar voice asks, taking a seat beside him. Damian turns to look at Steve Rogers who was smiling down at Damian. 

“Just a book.” Damian states, shutting it, turning to look forward again and showing the tracker to Rogers.

“Ah, you must be Sly then.”

Damian shakes his head, “Rose shouldn’t have said that. I _like_ not dealing with this stuff out of masks.”

“You chose to be a hero, you don’t always get what you want when that happens.”

“Okay, first of all, I chose to be a _vigilante_ not a hero, those are different. And yeah, but that normally refers to some supervillain jackass revealing my identity, not _my sister_. Ugh! This is so revenge.” For what, Damian will figure out later.

Rogers chuckles, “Well, since she outed you, you mind coming to the tower to chat? Tony would really like to meet you.”

“He’s already met me.”

“The real you. Without the fake voice or mask.”

“Batgirl is the real me, Sly is the mask.” Sly paraphrases, then looks over at Rogers, who had his brow furrowed. “Batman says that, about himself and his public identity. Sometimes, you can only be who you are when you’re hidden behind a mask.”

“What, in this day and age people are still scared to be who they are?”

“It’s dangerous. Plus, most people would be scared.”

“People are always scared. And, I doubt its more dangerous than when you’re masked.”

“I’ve been outed as Slade Wilson’s daughter, with no modifications. Either someone is going to kidnap me, forcibly modify me like they did with Rose to try and turn me into a weapon, or someone is going to try to kill me. Use me for ransom against Slade or something. I’m in danger every moment of my life because of my father’s chosen career path. So are my siblings. I don’t want the added danger of me being outed as Batgirl. That brings a whole new host of people wanting to get me. And I don’t have the same protections as Sly that I do as Batgirl. I can call for the lanterns, I can call Wonder Woman, I can call Kal if I need help as Batgirl. I _can’t_ do that as Sly. “

“Why not? You had that little flashing disc thing for the lanterns right? Why can’t you just keep that on you? And you’ll have different protection if your public.”

“And more scrutiny. I already have one government organization trying to control me, I don’t need one full of Nazi’s doing it too.” The bus finally arrives, “It’s been nice talking to you, Mr. Rogers, but I have lunch plans.” Damian says and gets on the bus, sitting down and looking out the window.

“So, where are we going for lunch?” Barton asks, sitting down next to Damian.

Damian rolls his eyes but answers, “Somewhere vegetarian. That place was too gross.” 

“Stark will definitely fight you if you say that to his face.”

“Oh? But letting him hear it over comms is okay?”

“He’s not listening right now.” Barton remarks, and at Damian's disbelieving look he adds, “No, really, he’s not. We just want to talk.”

“So I’ve heard. I gave you a chance to talk last week. Although, I suppose I did shock you into silence with that wonderful sob story.”

“So it was a lie.”

“Uh huh. I was raised by the League of Assassins. Not in Gotham. Not even in America. I have a half brother I never really met nor talk to. He’s a pompous asshole. Mom gave me to Slade a few years ago. Too dangerous to stay with her or something.”

“Is that a lie?”

“No. Until I need to change my story.”

“But, we have files on your history.”

“It’s wonderful to have a tech girl who can do anything.”

“You remind me a lot of Nat before SHIELD.” Damian raises an eyebrow but stays silent. If the man wants to talk, let him talk. “She had no set name, no home, no age, her story would change whenever it suited her, to make you underestimate her more. But, when she was given a chance to be a better person, she took it.”

“What, you going to give me a chance?”

“I think you’ve already been given it. But not by Batman, by the woman you emulate when you’re batgirl. You respect her a lot.”

“What, are you psychoanalyzing me now?”

Barton chuckles, “No, someone at SHIELD did a while back, that was in their report.”

“Mm, well, you’re paying for lunch. Get up.” Damian says as they were coming up to their stop. 

“Why?” Barton asks, standing up and moving out of the seats, to hold onto the bar. Damian stands up as well as the bus comes to a stop.

“Because you’re the one with access to a billionaire’s bank account.” Damian states, leaving the bus. Barton was close behind him.

“Suppose that’s fair. Mind if we meet up with a friend?”

“Can I say no?” Damian doubted it. They were clearly set on annoying him the whole day.

“Yeah, I can text Bruce to not meet up with us.” 

“Dr. Banner? I don’t mind him.” His research was at least interesting.

“How many Bruce’s do you know?”

“Well, Batman is dating Bruce Wayne.”

“Wait, that’s true?” 

“Uh, _was_. They _ were_ dating,” Father had told him to nix that rumour. Gordon had supplied a better rumour, “Broke up a few days ago. Mutual thing, they loved other people.”

“Please, please tell me you’re a gossip because I so need to know who.”

“Well, I know Batman has this ridiculous crush on Clark Kent. He’s a reporter for the Daily Planet. Don’t know about Bruce Wayne though, but Superman has the _worst_ crush on the man. I mean, have you heard how much Kal saves him?”

“Kal?”

“Kal-El, Superman’s name.”

“I thought he had a secret identity?”

Damian shakes his head, “No, he’s pretty public with it. His name is Kal-El of the House El, he’s from Krypton, he lives in his Fortress of Solitude up North, I think it was his parent’s ship or something?” Damian shrugs, “I don’t ask, or think about it. People actually say Kal and Clark look a lot alike. Bruce mostly, since he’s the only one who really interacts with both. But I’ve never seen it. Clark is so shy, he’s like permanently in his Farm Boy ‘Aw shucks’ mode. That man couldn’t hurt a fly. He’s like the polar opposite of Kal. I don’t get it. Luthor once claimed that he _was_ Superman, but like, why would Superman pretend to be a human reporter? It’s not like he needs money. And, that’s like claiming your barista who looks a _lot_ like Barack Obama, _is_ Barack Obama. Like, it what world does that make sense?”

“That is a lot of information about people I do not know.”

“You asked for gossip!” Damian defends.

“Please tell me you at least have pictures of the two.” 

“Duh,” Damian pulls out his phone, turning it on, but Barton stops him before he could unlock it.

“Wait, what is that?” He asks, referring to Damian’s background. It was a picture of Supergirl faceplanting into a light post.

“Supergirl hitting a lamp post. My brother, uh, batbrother, collects pictures like this. I mean, when you work with people with superspeed, how can you not have pictures of them crashing into things?” Damian asks, unlocking his phone and going to his photos. 

Now, this wasn’t actually Damian’s phone, it was a phone Gordon had set up for Sly Wilson. So it didn’t have any pictures of his siblings, or anything relating to Damian Wayne. Damian scrolls for a bit before finding a picture of Superman carrying Bruce Wayne bridal style. Superman was facing the camera and smiling brightly. Damian shows the picture to Barton who nods, and then Damian went to the internet to find a picture of Clark. There weren’t any on either of his phones. To be fair, he didn’t really take pictures of anyone. Damian pulls up a picture of Clark standing next to Lois, smiling sheepishly.

“They look pretty identical.”

“Well, you do have like eight people who look identical to you on the planet. Doesn’t mean they’re the same person. Seriously, spend ten minutes with both of them, they’re polar opposites. And, actually,” Damian changes his search and after some digging pulls out a picture of Superman next to Clark Kent to show Barton. One of them was J’onn J’onzz, but it’s not like Barton would know that. 

“Wow. Yeah, Kent’s shorter,” That would be because he’s hunching and Superman is hovering, but, “They still look a lot alike, but definitely some differences.” There were no differences. They were literally the same person. But, the goal is to make Barton believe that they are separate people. Well, to make the Avengers in general think that. So when they inevitably meet Damian Wayne, they don’t immediately think he’s Sly. Also why he mentioned having a half-brother earlier.

“Uh huh. It’s ridiculous. I mean, Kal is invulnerable, Clark gets papercuts,” Thanks to a special Kryptonite tie clip that makes him closer to a normal human without the pain and sickness that normally comes with Kryptonite. Father spent far too long on that project, in Damian’s opinion. “To think they could be the same person is insane.” Damian says, walking into a little restaurant, with Barton close behind. The man stops to look at the name and text but otherwise he’s right with Damian. “For three, please.” Damian addresses the hostess who smiles, nods and tells them to follow her. It was past lunch time so they weren’t that busy.

“You have strong opinions on this.” Barton says when they get seated and the hostess leaves.

“Not really. Luthor is just _so_ annoying. Like, it’s not enough you create a child with Kal, now you have to try and out him when he’s never been hidden? Like, get a grip man.”

“I’m sorry, create a child?” Damian doesn’t answer as their waitress came up and asked for drink orders. After they’re given, Damian responds.

“Yeah, he got some of Kal’s DNA, got some of his own, and created a clone.”

“How many ‘Supers’ are out there?” 

“Uh, let’s see, there is Superman, Supergirl, Superboy, a different Superboy, a different different Superboy, Krypto, and I think that’s it?”

“There’s been three superboys?”

“Yes, sometimes at the same time. It gets confusing.”

“I bet,” Barton nods, he looks confused just thinking about it. Really, Conner, Chris and Jon were pretty easy to distinguish from one another. Conner was typically found with Drake, Chris had brown hair, Jon was younger than both of them. “Bruce!” Barton calls, waving the man down. Dr. Banner walks over and takes a seat next to Damian at their table.

“Hello.”

“Hiya.”

“We were just talking about all the Super’s in the world. Funny we never heard of them,”

“Did you forget the part where ARGUS was purposefully keeping us hidden?” Damian asks.

“Yeah, why were they doing that?”

Damian hesitates, to be honest, they were never really given the real reason why they had to stay hidden. Always told, ‘when you’re older’, but Brainiac and Darkseid were heavily implied to be part of the reason. But Damian really only knew details on Brainiac’s attack, none of the Justice League really wanted to talk about Darkseid. Only when it was necessary.

“To be honest, I was never really told. It happened decades ago, before I was even born. But, with what information I _do_ have, I’d say it probably had to with Brainiac.” Nothing more is said on the matter as the Waitress comes by to get Bruce’s drink order, then ask if they were ready to order food. They were, Bruce had been here before and had a favourite on the menu already.

“Who’s Brainiac?” Barton asks once they were left alone again.

“He’s, he’s an alien. He collects things. I think it was in the 70s or something, he came to Earth, looking for Superman. Kryptonians were rare, after all their entire planet was destroyed. Brainiac wanted one. He ‘collected’ a few on the most populated cities, he sent his robots down to collect people or kill them, or both. The Hero community fought, they didn’t want Superman to go, to give him up. They fought, hundreds of thousands of people died, and while they were ultimately able to defeat Brainiac, they were blamed for the deaths.They were blamed for not preventing Brainiac from killing people, ignoring the fact that once Brainiac had Superman, he was planning on torching the planet anyways. Still, they were blamed, they were hated, so they did what they thought was best, they faded into obscurity with ARGUS covering their existence. Removing any records of them, destroying any footage, making everyone feel the Mandela effect.”

“Mandela Effect?” 

“It’s a false memory theory. When everyone has a memory of something with no proof that thing actually happened.” Bruce explains.

“Yeah, so, everyone just thought it was the drugs, 70s, and the superhero community went into darkness. The only people that knew were their own cities. Superman retreated to Metropolis, Batman to Gotham, Flash to Central City, Green Arrow to Starling, Aquaman to Atlantis, Wonder Woman only acts with interplanetary issues, same with Cyborg, Green Lantern.” Damian shrugs, “It’s better that way.”

“So what, they faded to obscurity because they couldn’t handle being responsible?”

“No. That was just part of it. But, for Superman, he has super hearing and super speed, he could hear someone calling for help on the otherside of the planet and be there in a second to help. So when people died from shootings, or there was any preventable death, he was blamed. He was blamed for not saving them. He would blame himself too if he ever wasn’t fast enough, takes quite a toll on you mentally. He had to step back. The others, they had sidekicks at the time, Robin, Wondergirl, Kid Flash, Aqualad, they were kids and people were yelling at them that they were useless, that if they can’t save the world they shouldn’t be alive, they should die to save the planet, what use were they otherwise? It got bad. And, Brainiac only knew of Superman because of all the media surrounding him on Earth. If that never happened, Brainiac wouldn’t have ever come to Earth. They didn’t hide from responsibility, they hid to _be_ responsible. If they don’t think we have people to fight, people of worth, they wouldn’t come.”

“People were saying that shit to _children_?” Barton asks, and Bruce was starting to look a little green around the edges.

“Maybe this wasn’t the best topic.” Damian says, taking a sip of his water.

“It’s something we need to know though. We need to know about other interplanetary threats.”

Damian shakes his head, “You don’t. The Justice League will handle Brainiac and Darkseid.” He immediately regrets what he said, he really doesn’t want to talk about Darkseid.

“Darkseid?”

“Not important.”

“I think-”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Okay?” Darkseid was a whole other can of worms Damian didn’t want to get into.

“Okay. Sorry for pushing.” Barton says, actually sounding apologetic. They lapse into an awkward silence, until, “So, uh,any boys interest you?”

Damian immediately groans. Why is that the topic everyone goes to? “No.”

“Girls?”

Damian hesitates, this wasn’t actually covered when Gordon sent him out. But, Emiko would understand, right? “One.” 

“Oooo! Tell us more.” Dr. Banner as looking like he’d rather be talking about anything other than a teenage girl’s love life. Damian felt for him.

“Not much to tell. She’s out of my league, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t like me the same way anyways, pretty sure she actually has a crush on one of my brothers, uh, batbrothers. Sorry, I’m not used to talking to people who know both sides of my life.”

“Nah, it’s fine. But tell us moreeee. Maybe we can help.” They absolutely could not help the crush he no longer has on Emiko. That sailed a while ago. But, she was really the only girl friend who would be a good sport about this. Mainly not making fun of him, and if Barton _does_ go the extra mile to matchmake, then she’ll understand. Hopefully. 

“She’s beautiful, a little older than me, around my height. She gets me on a fundamental level, she’s one of my best friends. She's how I know Ollie out of the mask,” Damian shrugs, “She’s amazing, but, so out of my league. I’m happy to be friends with her, and I’d really rather you not help. Please.”

“That’s probably for the best. Clint doesn’t need to be involved with teenager’s love life.” Dr. Banner states, thank god for him.

“Fine, you ever do archery?” Barton asks as their food gets served.

“Want to have a competition?” Damian couldn’t say he expected the pure glee on the man’s face when he offered but really, why not? He hadn’t done archery in a while.

Damian wasn’t really surprised that Barton won their competition, the man’s main skill was archery. But Barton was happy with how well Damian had done, even offering some tips and tricks which Damian took to heart. 

Damian sighs as he rides the elevator up to Gordon’s floor in the Clocktower. He had stayed in New York for most of the day, so it was pretty late. He needed to brief Gordon on what had happened. They hadn’t equipped him with a wire since there wasn’t supposed to be any contact beyond the initial one with whatever Avenger showed up at Burger King. Rose had also called him to tell him about the guy that had been watching them, some guy Slade had pissed off that was no longer a problem. Damian didn’t ask her to expand on that, he didn’t really want to know what she did.

“How’d your day in New York go?” Gordon asks when the elevator opens and Damian walks out. Brown and Cain were sparring off to the side.

“Fine. Had lunch with Dr. Banner and Clint Barton. Little chat with Captain Rogers. Rose revealed my identity to Widow and Hawkeye. Well, fake identity.”

“What was the point of that anyways? Now they know what you look like, so when you inevitably meet them at some Gala they’ll know you lied.” Brown states, still sparring.

“It was to create a Superman effect.”

“Superman Effect?” Damian hadn’t heard of it either.

“It’s what I call the reason why no one connects the dots between Clark and Superman. Superman has a public identity. His name is Kal-El, he’s from Krypton, he lives up north in his Fortress of Solitude. This is all on the internet, right? So no one thinks, ‘hey Clark looks a lot like Superman, maybe they’re the same person,’ because they think they know everything about Superman. He doesn’t wear a mask. If you go to wikipedia, it even states that his identity is public, compared to Flash whose identity is listed as ‘secret’. If they think they know everything about Damian, or in this case, ‘Sly Wilson’ then they won’t think she’s Damian. Why pretend to be two different people?”

“I guess that makes sense.” Brown says right before Cain takes her down. Hard. Cain quickly helps her up and signs an apology. Clearly not having thought Brown was that distracted.

“I also mentioned that I have a half brother so they won’t be so suspicious about how similar we look.”

“You have started to take after Talia a lot more recently. You look less like a Bruce clone.” Brown remarks.

“Thanks.” Damian hesitates before asking, “Does anyone know the real reason why we were hidden?” The room falls completely silent, the only one who would know would be Gordon. And not even the Justice League wants to talk about it.

“They asked?” Was Gordon’s response.

“Yeah. I told them it had to do with Brainiac. Then I had to explain who Brainiac was. Just, what I had thought was part of the reason we went into hiding.” Damian shrugs.

“Yeah, the fallout from that was, it was awful. Definitely the last straw. The full reason is complicated Damian. And there are different reasons for everyone. Like, Clark doesn’t want to out himself and Jon because of the expectation they’ll save everyone. Clark was in an awful place mentally before we went into hiding, he blamed himself for every preventable death, even the unpreventable ones. Diana just doesn’t interfere unless there’s a war or something. It’s complicated.”

“And I’ll understand it better when I’m older?” Damian scoffs, that what he’s always told. When you’re older, when you’re older, over and over again.

“No. It’ll be easier to handle when you’re older.” That was a first though, although, was it really worse than everything else he’s experienced? “And, none of us really want to talk about it.” That made more sense.

“I, uh, also told them Batman had a crush on Clark Kent and Superman was in love with Bruce.”

“I only said Bruce and Superman. Why’d you drag Clark into it?” Gordon ask while Brown starts dying laughing.

“I panicked? Also, by dragging Clark into I showed them that just because they look similar doesn’t mean they’re the same person. I hammered that point home at least.”

“That’s good at least.”

“Yeah, I, uh, I also told them I have a crush on Emiko. Well, Sly does.” Damian didn’t really want to share that, but it was probably good they know it. Probably.

“Aww.” Brown coos.

“You still have a crush on Emiko?” 

“No. I don’t have a crush on Emiko anymore.”

“So who do you have a crush on now?”

“Why is that the topic of today?!” Damian exclaims, why was everyone asking that? He was saved from any further inquiry by an alarm going off.

“Bank robbers. Go get changed” Gordon states, gesturing for all of them to go get changed, while she types away at her computer.

Patrol had finished at 12:15 am, Damian had showered and went to bed immediately, too tired to really care about anything else like post-patrol briefing. Father would understand.

Damian was woken up by Barnes’ footsteps. The man walked around a lot at night, mainly when he got nightmares, so it wasn’t too odd to hear him walking around at 4:30 am. What was odd, was the fact that he stopped in front of Damian’s door and swung it open.

“What do you want?” Damian groans, this was too early, even for him. The sun wasn’t even up!

“Training.”

“I’ve been asleep for like four hours.” Not enough sleep. In no way was that enough sleep.

“Precisely four hours. After four hours your body has gone through enough REM that it does not negatively affect you to be woken up. Get dressed.” With that, Barnes walks away. Damian groans but gets up, if he doesn’t he’s pretty sure Barnes will just come back and drag him out of bed. He throws on his normal training clothes and heads down to the cave. After Barnes was aware enough that he wouldn’t go spilling all their secrets to anyone who asked, Father had agreed to let him down into the cave. Really it was so Barnes didn’t discover it on his own. 

“Why are we training at 4:30 in the morning?” Damian asks, walking over to the training area to find Barnes. The man was there, rolling his neck and shoulders.

“Harley said you’re pretending to be a girl sometimes.”

“Yes?” Why was that relevant?

“Then you should be trained as the Black Widows were.” How does one make that connection?! Damian was really too tired to argue, his own internal clock was now screwed up and he was going to be cranky. 

“I-sure, why not. What’s first?” Damian asks, and Barnes delves into an explanation while Damian stretches.

Bruce wasn’t entirely sure what he expected when he went down into the cave that morning, aside from the tests he had started the night before to be done. He definitely wasn’t expecting his youngest son and the Winter Soldier to be sparring.

“What’s going on?” Bruce asks, raising an eyebrow at the pair. He was pretty sure Harley hadn’t cleared Barnes for training, otherwise he would’ve been notified.

“Barnes is training me to be a Black Widow.” Damian states, seemingly content from his place on Barnes’ shoulders, legs set in a move they had all seen Romanoff do many times.

“Without the enhancements.” Barnes adds, because all the Widows had been enhanced in some way. 

“Okay?” Bruce really didn’t know what else to say, how does one respond to this? “You know you have school, right? That you should be getting ready for if you want a ride?” Bruce asks, it was cutting it close for Damian to have time to shower, get dressed and Alfred fly him to Metropolis for school.

“Is it that late already?” Damian asks, openly confused. If there was one good thing about this whole thing, it was Damian was starting to be a bit more open with his emotions.

“I thought you were already at University levels. Past them in some aspects”

“I am. School is for forced socialization. ” Damian explains,getting off of Barnes’ shoulders and running up the stairs to get ready. 

“I was unaware you were cleared for training.” Bruce states, tapping away at the Batcomputer.

“‘M’not. But it felt appropriate that the kid learn.” Barnes says, shrugging, “Harley agrees.”

“Of course she does.”

The pair delve into silence as Bruce checks the results of the tests.

“I also want to congratulate ya.” Bruce furrows his brow in confusion, staying silent but wanting the man to continue. He doesn’t for a while, until Bruce grabs his coffee cup and starts to take a sip, “Superman will be a great husband.” Bruce chokes on his coffee, coughing as Barnes makes his escape. 

He doesn’t know where that came from, but he’s willing to bet his children. And given Barnes has really only been around them and Harley, Bruce can’t really fault him for picking up their sense of humour and jokes. Annoying though. Although at this point in his life, he really shouldn’t be surprised at that. Until he sees he’s gotten a message from Barbara, which is just a link to a news article. Upon clicking on it, it sends him to a tabloid published earlier this morning with the title;

_Torrid Love Affair! Bruce Wayne leaves Batman for Superman!_

Dear god, that is _not_ what he meant when he told them to stop the rumour he was dating himself. Goddamnit.

_-After School-_

“I can’t believe you didn’t get grounded.” Jon bemoans, he and Damian were walking into the Kent’s apartment building.

“Well, I didn’t technically break any rules. Although, I’m still pretty sure I’m being punished in one way or another.” Damian says, calling the elevator.

“How so?”

“So many things. Barnes woke me up at 4:30 this morning.” The pair get on the elevator and Jon hits the floor, “Gordon has decided the Avengers need to meet me face to face-”

“Is that a good idea?”

“And be some sort of ambassador from the Old to New heroes, or some bullshit like that. Barnes has decided that since I play a girl sometimes I should be trained like a Widow so 4:30 training is now a _thing_. I have to check in on the other supersoldiers to make sure they’re okay and not regretting anything. It’s been decided that I shouldn’t just be going out as Batgirl because people are suspicious with the new Batgirl appearance and Robin disappearing, so now they are nights where I got out as Batgirl for the first half, Robin for the second half. Brown got roped into that and is now pretending to be Batgirl some nights when I’m Robin, so people don’t get suspicious about _that_. Also, my grandparents are back from the dead except not really because they’re from an alternate dimension.”

The elevators open when Damian is done his rant and the pair go to the Kent’s apartment, no one was home yet but Kent would be in half an hour.

“No offence, but a lot of that sounds self-inflicted Dami.”

“I know. Don’t know how to make it stop though.” Damian grumbles, flopping onto the couch. 

“Maybe talk to your dad? I’m sure he would lessen your patrol.” Jon unpacks their homework, it wasn’t remotely the same, given that they were three years apart, but they still did their homework together anyways.

“That’s not even stressful! Yeah, the back and forth of Batgirl and Robin is annoying, but it’s nothing compared to everything else. I have to check in with former Nazi super-soldiers to make sure they’re not going to betray us for their former organization, I’m the one who brought my grandparents to our family in the first place so if they turn out to be murderous assholes, that’s on me. Not to mention the fact that I now have a completely different identity I need to keep up with, meaning I have to spend more time with Slade Wilson than I would prefer, get to know his children well enough it seems like we’ve known each other for years, and I have to be flying to New York to deal with the Avengers. And school!” Damian drops his hands over his eyes, he never likes complaining. But dear god this past week has been stressful. With Gordon getting him ready to come out as a Wilson, getting the Wilson’s onboard (which wasn’t actually hard, just cost a few million) and spending time with the family. Informing Mother of her fake daughter with Slade Wilson, which she seemed more amused than anything, thank god. Learning how to perfectly do make-up and also how to make it seem like he wasn’t wearing makeup, making sure a wig looked natural, what talking points were okay, what weren’t. So many things getting done, on top of what Damian normally had to do.

“School isn’t that big of a deal for you though, what’d you call it? Forced socialization?”

“Yeah. But it’s also six hours of my day I’ll never get back.” Before Jon could respond, Kent comes through the door.

“Dad! You’re home early.”

“Yeah, Perry sent everyone home a bit early, not sure why.”

“Are you going bankrupt?” Damian asks.

“No.”

“Hey, you said you had a whole new identity?” Jon asks, having just fully processed Damian’s second rant.

“Yeah, Sly Wilson, she’s my half-sister. Who’s me. Gordon’s idea.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“More frustrating than anything” Damian grumbles, and then a knock sounds at the door. Kent lifts his glasses, looking through the door before furrowing his brow, dropping his glasses back in place.

“Mr. Stark, Ms. Romanoff and Captain Rogers are here.” 

Damian grabs one of the other pillows off the couch and presses it against his face,” Nooo” He groans. He doesn’t want to deal with this. Not now. Not here.

“I can tell them to go away.” Kent offers.

“It’s whatever.”

“Did you just say ‘it’s whatever’? Are you okay?” Jon asks, clearly concerned. Damian didn’t speak like that normally.

Damian groans again, “Brown is rubbing off on me.” 

Kent goes and answers the door, greeting the three happily and inviting them in.

“And those two are your children?” Stark asks when the group comes back.

“One is, Jon. And Damian is his friend.” Kent says, without specifying which is which.

“Is the one on the couch okay?”

“He’s just stressed. What are you here for Mr. Stark?” Jon asks.

“Uh, we wanted to talk to your dad.” Stark says before speaking to Kent, “About your relationship with Batman.” Oh shit.

“My relationship?” Kent asks, clearly confused. Fuck. They hadn’t briefed anyone. To be fair, Damian literally talked to the _yesterday_. They haven’t had the chance.

“You’re romantically involved with him?” Damian didn’t need to remove the pillow from his face to know Kent had a deer in headlights look going on. It happened whenever something he didn’t expect happened. Great. 

“Dad hasn’t been romantically involved with anyone since he and Mom divorced.” Jon supplies.

“The intel said Batman had a crush on Kent, not that they were dating.” Romanoff states. Thank God that got cleared up, Damian didn’t want to have to do it himself.

“Batman has a what?” Kent asks, sounding choked. He was definitely blushing. Okay, maybe not as good as news as Damian thought. He was so dead.

“Which you did not know about. Uh, well now this is awkward.”

“Where’d you get your intel from?” Jon asks, Damian turns his head to look at his friend suspiciously, Jon was up to something.

“That’s confidential.” Romanoff states.

“Was it from Sly?” Oh that mother fucker.

“Sly?”

“Sly Wilson? She said she talked to you guys.” Damian said nothing of the sort. But, to be fair, starting a rumour their dads were dating is exactly what Damian would do. And did do.

“You know her?” 

“Yeah? She’s Damian’s sister.”

“*Tt* _half_-sister.” Damian corrects, pulling the pillow off his face and sitting up. “In no way am I related to _Slade Wilson_.”

“Really? You two look awful similar, could be twins.”

Damian scrunched up his face in disgust, “We look _nothing_ alike. The only features we share are mothers.” Which was a straight-up lie. They were fucking identical

“Who is your mother? It wasn’t listed on Sly’s birth certificate.”

“*Tt*, You won’t find her.”

“Why not?”

“*tt* you couldn’t even keep track of HYDRA, you honestly think you’ll be able to find anything on the League of Assassins?” Damian asks, probably shouldn’t reveal he knows about HYDRA but he’s outing himself as a child assassin, it could be explained away as the League keeping track of other terrorist organizations. Rogers had a look on his face like he was questioning why everyone kept bringing up HYDRA. 

“I thought it was the League of Shadows?” Jon asks, which fair, the name changes sometimes.

“They’re a myth.” Romanoff states, shifting her weight. She was uncomfortable.

“What are they? Aside from a league of Assassins?” Stark asks.

“They’re shitheads.” 

“Jon!” Kent immediately scolds and Jon looks chastised instantly. Clearly having forgotten his father was present.

“You’re rubbing off on me too much.” Jon grumbles, shoving Damian gently.

“They’re an ancient eco-terrorist organization. Been around for 3000 years, give or take. Headed by Ra’s Al Ghul.” Damian explains.

“Like currently or that’s a title passed down from the first leader?”

“Yes. Although the leader hasn’t changed in 3000 years.”

“What?” Rogers asks, he and Stark looked confused, Romanoff looked contemplative.

“It’s said that Ra’s Al Ghul has been alive for three thousand years, some say its a curse, some say he’s found the secret to eternal life. Most agree that he’ll only die when he finally accomplishes his goal. What that is exactly is unknown.” Romanoff says, recounting tales of the League of Assassins.

“No. He’ll die otherwise. Has before. But he comes back, kind of annoying.” Damian states.

“I’m guessing it means truly die. Like, be unable to come back. What’s his goal?”

“To marry Damian’s brother!” Jon says happily and Damian doesn’t really think, he just smacks a pillow into Jon’s face hard enough for an audible *thwack* to be heard and it to burst at the seams because Jon didn’t even bother moving with it.

“He does not want to marry Drake!” Damian objects. He just had a relatively unhealthy obsession with him. Jon pulls the pillow from his hand and drops it on his lap.

“Really? Then why does he get kidnapped so much?”

“Because Drake is a moron and subsists on coffee making him an easy target for grandfather to abduct.”

“Grandfather?” Stark asks, butting in.

“My mother is Talia Al Ghul, daughter of Ra’s Al Ghul, the Demon’s Head. I was supposed to be his heir when I grow up. Or his vessel for when his body could no longer take being revived and he needed a new body.” Damian shrugs, “Depended.”

“Vessel? Like, you were going to be removed from your own body?”

“Uh huh. His soul in, my soul out. Mother didn’t like that, got too attached to me, so she sent me to live with my father. Who is _not_ Slade Wilson.”

“Uh, as lovely as this conversation is, boys, you have homework. So, why don’t you go do it in Jon’s room?” Kent says, clearly wanting the boys out.

“Yeah sure.” Damian says, grabbing his bag and homework and walking to Jon’s room, letting the younger boy follow after him.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” Jon asks while they set up in his room.

“Batman’s crush on him, if he knows of Sly Wilson, probably what he knows of Superman. Maybe about the League.”

“I thought you were-”

“You can’t get all your information from one person. It increases the likelihood of it being false.”

“I guess that makes sense. Can you help me with math?” Damian nods and shifts closer to Jon, reading the assignment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on the firm belief that Damian only orders burgers from fast food joints to shove them in his brother's faces.
> 
> Are the ages screwed up and make no sense? Yes. Do I care? No.
> 
> Damian is so stressed. Poor baby. And according to the DC wiki, Rose actually had a crush on Jason and Emiko has a crush on Nightwing. Also, did you know Damian canon height (according to the wiki) is 4'6" and he's _not even 90 pounds?_ I aged him up and threw him through a growth spurt but omg I didn't think he was that small.
> 
> When I started this, I didn't have a set reason why they were hidden or how they managed to stay hidden, but I played Injustice 2 (again) recently, and thought Brainiac would be a good reason. Also, so much stress and I made people assholes because people can be assholes when they feel like their loved ones were killed needlessly just to save one man.
> 
> And, uh, I also forgot Lois and Clark were married, until I literally got to Damian and Jon's part and went 'Oh shit, what now?' because either Clark can tell them he's happily married and Batman has to pine from afar, or I made happen.
> 
> Also, would anyone want some 'outtakes'? Like part of the story that I wrote but didn't really work? Like Damian being convinced to be Batgirl initially before saving Jason, or the Avengers getting a cease and desist from ARGUS? Stuff I know I won't be able to use later on in the story.
> 
> As always, feel free to ask any questions, bug me on tumblr, same name as here.  
Thanks for reading!


	5. I haven't read enough Rose comic books for her to be this major of a character in a chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who _ finally_ watched Ant man & the Wasp? That has nothing to do with this chapter. 
> 
> Danny I took from Doom Patrol.
> 
> I know a bit about Rose. I don't want to take too much from Titans (I haven't watched S2 yet but I've seen clips) since she's at a different point in her life, but i also have no idea if she's OOC or not. Also, IDK if I made this clear, Slade's 100% in on it. Also, I have her referring to Slade by name, only because I don't know what she calls him legit in the comics?

It was a normal day at the Avenger’s Tower; Clint was being kicked out of the kitchen before he could start a fire, Bruce was cooking breakfast with Steve, Natasha was the one keeping Clint from going back into the kitchen and making sure Tony didn’t get up and go down to his lab before eating. Mainly by raising an eyebrow whenever he moved to get up, which scared him into sitting down and continuing working on his tablet.

So, as normal as things got for them. 

Until, JARVIS turns on the TV to a Gotham News Station.

_ “This is a breaking newscast, Batgirl was found dead earlier this morning. We were not informed until now as the GCPD wanted to be positive it was truly Batgirl and not merely a child in a convincing costume. We were also given crime scene photos, so viewer discretion is advised as these are graphic,” _ The image of the news lady cuts out to one of Batgirl, splayed out on the ground, arms spread wide with her cape covering the ground from her body to her arms. ‘HAHA’ was spray-painted repeatedly all over the interior of her cape, her mouth was slightly open with blood coming out of it. The photo shifts to one from a different angle._ “It is believed that the Joker may be responsible for her murder, given the spray paint on her cape. However there are no real suspects at this time, and aside from confirming that this is in fact Batgirl.” _ The next photo showed the police packing Batgirl up in a bodybag. _ “Recently, Batgirl showed herself to the world, being seen most notably with Iron man, she is partly responsible for bringing the old heros up to the new age of heroes, I’m sure many are mourning this loss.” _

Everyone had stopped what they were doing, just staring at the TV as it goes to regular programming. No one really reacts until something starts burning, then Steve starts cursing and turning the stove off, removing the pans from the heat.

“J?” Tony asks, he wasn’t really believing what he had seen.

_ “The broadcast was correct, all the information I was given states that Batgirl has been killed. They have even identified the body as Sly Wilson.” _ JARVIS supplies.

“Will there be a service?” Steve asks solemnly.

_ “Gotham City is having a candle-light vigil for Batgirl next Saturday. There is no news on what the Wilson family intends to do, but it will most likely be delayed as there is an active murder investigation going on regarding her and hence Ms. Wilson’s body will not be released for some time.”_

“Makes sense. Can you do anything to help?” Tony asks, he still couldn’t believe it. They had seen her _yesterday_. She was joking, laughing and helping Clint set up pranks not 24 hours ago. And now…

Now she was in the morgue.

_ “I’m afraid not. The GCPD does not do much online. In fact, the only reason I know they have identified the body is because they had to put in the request for her medical records after asking Mr. Wilson in to identify her body. They are very old fashioned.” _

“Update us if you can on any progress they make then.” Tony orders, then stands up, “I’m heading down to the lab, don’t…” Tony didn’t know how to finish that, don’t what? Bother him? Come down? Talk to him about the fact that a child was literally killed? A child they all knew? That came over and hung out sometimes? He just left, leaving the sentence unfinished. He needed to be alone. 

Walking into his lab, he orders JARVIS to put it on blackout mode, he doesn’t want to do any sort of Therapy that the others might try to force on him. He just needs to busy himself.

_-Elsewhere-_

A pair of platinum blondes were in a red convertible, driving down a wide-open road, no traffic anywhere near them.

“Was faking my death really necessary?” Damian asks, looking over at Rose. He was in a platinum blonde wig, why he didn’t know, but he knew Rose needed him for something. Correction, she needed Sly for something. Hence the wig. 

Last night, Rose had shown up, sounding desperate as she asked him to fake his death and go with her. She couldn’t give him any more details aside from that, not even where she got the cadaver from. 

Still, maybe Damian was getting Richard’s bleeding heart because he agreed, helping dress the cadaver in his batgirl suit, spray painting it in a design he knew would make his family see red with Rose’s help. He knew if the cadaver was unmasked or blood was taken, his family would know it wasn’t him, but he supposes that wasn’t super important. Although Rose was insistent he doesn’t tell them. No, she would not tell him why.

“Yes.”

“Will you tell me why and what we’re doing now?”

“Someone put a bounty on your head-”

“Please don’t tell me it was my mother. Again.”

“-I don’t know who, but I do know they contacted both me and dad about it. Maybe Grant but he’s on a sabbatical so.”

“Alright, but why does that matter? Last time this happened Father put me on house arrest, it didn’t work, but,”

“Because they’ve also put a bounty on Sly Wilson. They know who you are, not completely, but enough. So, you’re coming with me to figure out who wants you dead.”

“Okay. But, wouldn’t it be smarter for me to just be Damian Wayne? I mean, if we want them to think Sly is dead, maybe I shouldn’t be going around in a silver wig, blue contacts, square glasses and a stuffed bra?”

“I have no reason to be with Damian Wayne.”

“I guess? What about hiding at Wayne Manor as Damian and only go out as Robin?”

“No.” Rose immediately shot down before explaining a moment later, “I just have a bad feeling about that is all. What if this is just a ploy to get you to go into hiding or go under house arrest like last time? They _want_ you to be at Wayne Manor.”

“It could be the Court, then. They’ve gotten into Wayne Manor before, it wouldn’t be too hard. Especially since Father was having guests over in a few days, he can’t be kicking Talon’s faces in with other socialites around. They’d have the money and means.”

“They could also get Dick then. They want their Gray Son, and since you’re the closest thing Dick has to a son, they’d probably consider you a Gray Son as well.”

Damian squints at Rose in confusion before he realizes she doesn’t know, “I’ve joined the Court as their Gray Son before.”

“What?”

“It was to save Richard, and my idiot brothers. “ Damian shrugs, “Then shit happened and it was never spoken of again.”

“Okay. So, the Court is a suspect. But, there are still countless others, even if we remove all the usual suspects, there are countless people who hate both our dads that we don’t even know of.”

“So, what’s the plan?”

“We work backwards. I got the call for the bounty from Tom Cole, he’s a sleez and an asshole but he gets me good work. Sometimes. He also lives out in the middle of nowhere.” Which explained why _they_ were out in the middle of nowhere.

“What’s the plan for confronting him?”

“We ask nicely, when he doesn’t bite, we threaten to cut his balls off.”

“And when we’re done? He’ll know I’m alive.” Rose glances over at Damian with a raised eyebrow.

“...I’m not a bat.” She states and lets Damian connect the dots. Which were, she’s going to kill him.

“Okay. What if he doesn’t talk? I know we’ve both been trained to _make_ people talk, but still, what’s the plan if he doesn’t talk? If he’d rather die than spill who set up the bounty?”

“He’s going to die anyways, we’ll just tell him explicitly that we’ll be killing him after he tells us so he doesn’t have to be worried about getting tortured,” Rose says, shrugging.

“The person who set up the bounty might be able to raise him from the dead to torture him.”

“Then we’ll have narrowed it down to however many people that is and we can start crossing names off that list.”

That would still be a massive list and probably take weeks to get through. Well, there were worse ways to waste time. 

“Wait, we put my Batgirl costume on that cadaver, and I’m not going in unprotected.” Damian states. He was not going into a situation where he might get shot without at least a _little_ bit of kevlar.

“Chill, I got a spare Ravager costume in the back. Should fit you alright.”

Well, that solves that problem alright. There was another one though,

“You have a wig hairbrush right? Because this is getting tangled to hell and back by flowing in the wind.”

_-Batcave-_

“A bounty was put on Batgirl and Sly Wilson 20 hours ago. It was collected by one of the Wilson’s sixteen hours ago, an hour after Batgirl was found dead, but six hours before it would be announced on the news that she was dead. Since then, Slade Wilson was brought in to correctly identify Sly Wilson’s body, which was dressed up as Batgirl. The body will be released to the Wilson family for burial when the GCPD’s murder investigation wraps up.” Dick reads off, it was all the information they had gotten on Batgirl’s death. It smelled fishy, but the costume was right, the jawline was right, and the medical history matched. Bruce hadn’t removed the cowl when he went in since the officers were in the room with him, but from what he could tell, it was a real body. Most likely Damian’s given the height and build. He had died from the blunt force of falling several stories onto his back. 

“Something is _so_ wrong.” Tim states, pacing off to the side, Bruce was sitting at the Batcomputer, going through cases. Jason was just hanging around, which was surprising as they still didn’t have the best relationship all the time, but, then again, they did just lose a brother. Again. Duke was upstairs, talking to Alfred, probably reacting to this whole thing like a normal person.

“What? That the Demon-brat died _again_? It’s not that unbelievable Replacement.”

“No. Why hasn’t the Joker come forward? Huh? If he killed Damian then- then why hasn’t he taken credit? Why hasn’t he started mocking us? Why didn’t he record it?”

“He didn’t record killing me!”

“He recorded your screams,” Bruce states quietly, but it rang through the cave like he shouted it. Jason’s death screams had been featured in a Joker-Riddler team up that none of the Batkids had been present for. It was in the file of that team up, but there were no details. Nothing more than the barest clinical statement.

“How do you know he didn’t record it?” Dick asks once the quiet had gotten too much. He had just gotten in from Bludhaven less than an hour ago, he had too many responsibilities he couldn’t just drop for someone he wasn’t publicly related to. Part of him had been tempted to anyways, but he knew Damian would’ve reamed him out for doing something so stupid. Especially for him.

“We looked everywhere around the body and any vantage points he could’ve been shoved off of for any sort of recording equipment or any evidence of the Joker, there was none.”

“What if he was killed somewhere else and the body moved?”

“Well then we’re shit out of luck because the GCPD doesn’t want us anywhere near the body, they let Bruce see it for less than a minute before kicking him out and locking it down. We can’t get in, Barbara can’t get in.” Tim exclaims.

“They’re hiding something.” Bruce states, which, yes, that much was obvious. But what?

“What could they be hiding?”

“Dirty cops? Maybe they worked with the Wilson’s to kill him, that’s why they’re releasing the body to them?” Jason suggests.

“Or because Batgirl was starting to have a public identity as Sly Wilson? It was starting to spread.”

“It was too dangerous. We should never have let that happen.” Bruce states.

“Yeah, well, can’t do anything about it now.” Jason shrugs, “Could the Wilson’s really have killed Damian? They’ve been hanging out a lot recently, to help with his cover. I mean, Slade definitely didn’t, he doesn’t kill kids, but what about Rose or Grant? Joey’s on a superhero kick right now, right?”

Tim nods while Dick answers, “Grant’s on a sabbatical. Resurrection takes its toll, so he’s taking a break. Rose, last I spoke to her, she like having Damian around as a sister. Thought he was fun and stuff. But, then again, a common trait with the Wilsons is, they do anything for money. We don’t know how big that bounty was, might’ve been enough for them to go after pseudo-family.” 

“Great, I’m going to go hunt one of them down,” Jason says moving to leave.

“Slade is in the Starlight Hotel downtown. Room 1156.” Bruce supplies. Jason nods and leaves the cave.

“Something is _so_ wrong with this.” Tim reitterates.

_-Elsewhere-_

“Was that necessary?” Damian asks, looking up at the hanging body of Tom Cole, it was swinging back and forth a little.

“He was a pervert and an asshole. Not to mention a necrophiliac.” Rose shudders as she comes down the stairs, walking over to Damian.

“Still, we didn’t even get that much information from him. Danny. No last name, no descriptor, we don’t know if it’s a place, a person, an organization, we’re not that much closer.” Damian says as the pair leave Tom Cole’s rundown two-story farmhouse. 

“Well, we know where Tom got his information from.”

“Yes. The Unknown Company. Helpful.”

“It’s not a dead end.”

“It’s not a lead.”

“Just, research it. I have another person we can go to to maybe get more information.” Rose says, climbing into the car. Damian follows shortly, pulling off the Ravager mask and shoving it into the glove box. He pulls out Rose’s tablet and starts going through every database he could about ‘The Unknown Company’. Unsurprisingly, he got nothing.

“Shocking. The Unknown Company doesn’t exist.” 

“We got that forwarding number right? The one he used to get me my payment for killing you?”

“That goes to a payphone on the corner of 51st and 3rd. And it is _just_ out of view of any and all the cameras around it.”

“Go through the footage, tag everyone who goes around the phone near the time death call would’ve been put in.” Rose orders and Damian immediately goes to do just that. 

Hours later, Damian had finally gotten all the footage and nailed down a pretty solid timeline for when the death call might’ve happened. Given people’s reactions and the looks toward the phone booth, which was most likely ringing and hence garnered some looks. Hopefully. Before Damian could say anything, Rose stops the car.

Damian looks up and raises an eyebrow. “Why are you stopped?” There was a town a few meters down the road.

“I’ve driven this road a million times, there has never been a street out here.”

“Maybe they built it since the last time you drove down here?” Damian suggests and Rose shakes her head. “Maybe it’s the sentient teleporting gender-queer street Cyborg’s talked about. I doubt a street will hurt us, and we need food.”

Rose still looks uncertain but she turns the car back on and keeps driving. She pulls over and parks on the side of the road, getting out to look suspiciously around them. The street was bustling with activity. 

Damian gets out and calls, “Rose,” when he notices the flower shop window, pointing at the writing. 

_ Hello Friends! Are you okay? You seem on edge._

Rose narrows her eyes and looks around the street, Damian does the same and notices the writing around them changes to talk to them. 

“Are you kids okay?” Someone asks, a tall black woman in heels walking up to them.

“I’m not a kid. We’re fine.” Rose states, tone clear. ‘Leave us alone’

“Really? ‘Cause neither of you seems fine.” Although the woman either didn’t notice or care.

“Someone’s trying to kill me. We’re a little on edge.” Damian explains, shrugging.

The leaves blow up in the wind, spelling out;

_ “Oh no! Is there anything I can do to help?” _

“Do you know anything about the Unknown Company?”

Danny was conspicuously silent but the woman responded.

“It’s a dangerous organization. Their members, their motives, their intentions, they’re all unknown.”

“Great. So we have just as much information as we did ten minutes ago.” Damian grumbles.

Smoke drifts in front of them, forming words; _ You’ll be safe if you stay here. They can’t come here. _

That piqued both his and Rose’s interest, “Why not?”

“You can’t be Unknown on Danny Street. Everyone sees you, which is the last thing those people want. Anyone comes here to hurt you, at least a dozen Dannizens will see them, and we don’t take kindly to people hurting our own. Or kids.”

“Look, as nice of offer as that is, we can’t stay here. We don’t hide. We hunt.” Rose states.

“Yeah, unless you happen to know of their home base, we’ll be leaving. After we eat.”

“Sorry. But, you’re free to go to any of the Diners. Have a safe trip.” The woman states before walking away.

“Can we please get food now? I’m really hungry. Wait, Danny do you have vegetarian food?”

_The Garden. Couple buildings down _ Danny supplies.

“Thank you!” Damian says and starts walking, Rose following closely, he expected her to complain about having to eat vegetarian food but she stayed silent, vigil in watching their back.

_-Clocktower-_

Stephanie and Cassandra were standing by Barbara’s desk, the woman herself so distraught.

“It’s not your fault Babs. It’s the bastard who killed him.” Steph tries, they had been trying for hours but Barbara wasn’t moved. _She_ was responsible for Damian as Batgirl. _She_ pushed him to be Batgirl, making the final decision for him to go out as such. _She_ trained him. _She_ deemed him ready to go out and patrol the streets as Batgirl.

And she was wrong.

He wasn’t ready. He never should have been out. Not alone. They had dozens out vigilantes to choose from, to partner with, but he went out alone. With Barbara’s permission. It _was_ her fault.

Stephanie drapes herself over Barbara’s back, hugging the older woman, “Come on, the boys think Dami’s death was suspicious. Maybe we should head over?” Stephanie suggests, but Barbara looks unmoved, she doesn’t want to have hope. Hope that she didn’t kill a child because she put too much faith in him. 

Barbara looks up when Cass touches her shoulder and then proceeds to sign, “There were no signs of him fighting back. No signs of bonds. It’s like he just fell off the roof. Which would **never** happen.”

“Cass is right. This is Damian we’re talking about. He would never go down easy.”

“He could’ve been drugged. Knocked out. But the damage doesn’t show because he fell back first onto concrete!”

“Babs-”

“Stop it. Both of you. Damian is dead and I killed him.”

“No you didn’t! Listen, even if the twerp is dead, which is a big fucking _if_ considering the GCPD won’t let anyone see the body and isn’t sharing any information, it’s his own fault. He was _suppose_ to be patrolling with Tim. But he ditched Tim to go meet up with some secret person. Then he ended up dead. So if you don’t want to blame Damian, blame Tim! He left Damian alone!” You know, sometimes, playing the blame game is a good thing. Especially if it makes your friend stop blaming herself for something that wasn’t her fault.

“It’s not Tim’s fault, Steph. I sent Damian out there.”

“Well, Bruce made Damian Batgirl first. Fuck it, he made Damian Robin, well actually Dick did that, but! Bruce kept Damian as Robin and imposed that stupid rule that made Damian go out as Batgirl in the first place which led to B being a dick and making Damian Batgirl full time, which you then corroborated as a fuck you to Bruce.”

“Steph-”

“No. You want to blame someone? Blame Bruce for sending the kid out as Robin after his _first_ death. Blame Dick for making him Robin and sending him out onto the streets. Hell, Blame Talia for training the kid from _birth_ to fight and kill. Babs, you are the _last_ person on the list to get blamed for Damian’s death. No one blames you, and you shouldn’t blame you either.” Steph exclaims, she was beyond done. She would do whatever necessary to get Barbara to _stop_.

“...But its _my_ fault.”

_-Elsewhere-_

They weren’t heading to New York. That would be a monumentally stupid plan. But they did have a different plan. Which really amounted to waiting and tracking. Damian had found someone they _think_ might be part of the Unknown Company. They at least answered the pay phone, if Damian’s tracking was correct. The man, Jake Miller, didn’t even live in New York. He lived in Ohio. So they were heading to Ohio, straight to where the man is registered as living.

“What’s on your mind?” Despite driving, Rose’s mind was clearly elsewhere.

“Maybe you should’ve stayed with Danny.” She finally blurts out after a considerate silence.

“Excuse me?” What the fuck?

“You’d be safe. I brought you with me because I figured you’d be safest with me, because we’re moving, we’re fighting, we won’t be caught with our backs turned. But, you would be safe with Danny. No one would go unnoticed, if they tried to hurt you, people would take notice and help.”

“Or someone could show up with a machine gun and kill a dozen people.”

“That could happen regardless. And I wouldn’t be able to protect you from a machine gun, not really.”

Damian sighs, “I have told you about the _last_ time I got put on house arrest, right? Leave me somewhere for my ‘safety’, I’ll just go hunting on my own.”

“Right.” Rose concedes, “I forget how similar you Bats are to us in that aspect. You hate to be on the sidelines, always have to be hunting, never hiding.”

“If done right, even hiding, you hunt.”

Rose shakes her head, “Well, let’s go kick some secret organization’s ass.”

_-Avenger’s Tower-_

Natasha was treating Tony’s black eye. His lab had exploded again, leading to him getting a black eye among other injuries. She had dragged him up to the main room where everyone else was.

“Something doesn’t feel right about this whole thing.” Clint states, messing around with his bow.

“What do you mean?” Steve asks, looking down at the healing cuts on his knuckles, he had been dragged out of the gym around the same time Natasha had dragged Tony out of his lab.

“Waller said Batman goes Batshit when one of his kids dies, but there haven’t been any reports of him being more brutal or anything. Not even of them hunting down the Joker. Something is up.”

“Maybe he doesn’t consider her one of his kids. She’s a Wilson, her father has habitually gone after Nightwing, Robin, Batman,” Tony shrugs, “maybe he holds it against her, doesn’t hold her as close as he does others.”

“Okay, then _I_ am going to kick his ass. What kind of mother-”

_”If I may,”_ JARVIS interrupts, _” Historically speaking, The Batman does not tend to react the same to his daughters dying as he does to his sons.”_

“...So we’re definitely going to kick Batman’s ass, right?”

“You’ll have to delay that for quite a while,” Pepper states, walking into the common room.

“Why?”

“With Batgirl passing, a lot of eyes have turned to you. You’re required to show up at the Gala tomorrow night, you don’t need to smile or be happy, but you need to be there and be bearable to be around. You _cannot_ go fight some vigilante, especially not one so publically close to Batgirl, that will turn the media against you. So, wait until the media is off you and Batgirl’s death, then you can fight the bastard.” Pepper orders.

“Since when are you the manager of the Avengers?”

“Since SI started supporting and funding the Avengers. Your public image affects the stocks, so keep it good and we’ll have nothing more to discuss.” Pepper says with a smile before turning on her heel and walking out.

“...Okay so we’re going to go kick Batman’s ass in a week?”

_-Elsewhere-_

“Okay!Okay! I’ll tell you, just don’t hurt me!” The man begs, cowering in the corner. His attack dog was standing by Damian’s side as the teen soothed and pet it. Initially, the man had ordered the dog to kill them, Damian managed to get the dog to stop, and then started cowering when he was left defenceless.

“What’s the dogs name?”

“What? It doesn’t have a name. It’s meant to attack and kill.” The man dismisses, which royally pissed Damian off for obvious reasons.

“Where is the Unknown Company?” Rose asks before Damian can start yelling or attacking the man. Information first, mauling second.

“Th-There’s an office in Glifast, I-I saw them there but I don’t know if they’re still there.”

“Who are they?”

“They-they help people disappear, become anonymous, they don’t do any harm!”

“They put a bounty on my friend’s head. Try again.”

“Well, they- they make people anonymous, so if someone put a hit on through them, they don’t want to be found. I don’t know anything else, I promise” The man was sobbing. 

“*tt*, he’s miserable enough on his own. Let’s go to Glifast. Come on James.” Damian says, pulling the dog out the door with him to the car, the dog dutifully following along.

Rose hurriedly follows after him, ignoring the sobbing man. “We’re not taking the dog.” Rose states as Damian gets the dog in the backseat of their car.

“We’re not leaving him here. James deserves better.” Damian says climbing into the backseat with the dog.

“James?” Rose asks.

“He was forced to become a killing machine, only meant to hurt others,” Damian says before he starts going over commands, training the dog. Rose tries, she tries to come up with something to say, to get them not to take the dog, but she comes up with nothing. Instead, just get’s in the driver’s seat and drives off, heading toward Glifast. 

“Leave the dog in the car.” Rose says when they park in the parkade. Damian’s arm was bloody and torn, because he was training an attack dog to not be an attack dog in the back of a moving vehicle. But he insisted he was fine and Rose didn’t want to get in the middle of him and a pet.

“It’s a convertible. He can get out if he wants.” Damian says, indicating that it would clearly be better to take James with them then leave him in a car for anyone to just take. Rose sighs and gets the roof on, then she rolls the window up most of the way, leaving enough space for James to be comfortable and have fresh air. Well, as fresh as air is in a parkade.

“James stays in the car.” Rose orders, getting out. Damian grumbles but follows, ordering James to stay. Which the dog did, whining.

“So, which office is theirs?” Damian asks, but before Rose can answer, someone in white with five glowing red eyes appears out of nowhere and punches Rose across the parkade.

_Ghost_. Damian had read up on her while going through HYDRA/SHIELD’s files. Ava Starr, molecular disequilibrium, works as an assassin and spy for HYDRA/SHIELD. Well, they have their answer on who put the hit out on him. Damian tried to dodge her attacks the best he could, but she could phase in and out of the visible spectrum as well as phase through _him_. So he made his goal to get closer to Rose who was getting up.

“Who the fuck in this?” Rose asks after landing a solid kick to Ghost’s chest and sending her flying into a car. Not theirs, thankfully.

“Ava Starr, codename Ghost. She’s a SHIELD operative with molecular disequilibrium.” Damian says quickly, Ghost was getting back up.

“What?”

“It’s how she phases and stuff. But it’s killing her, it’s a degenerative disease. She works for SHIELD because they said they could heal her.” Rose and Damian slammed back to back, looking around as Ghost disappeared again.

“Can they?” Rose asks.

“If she had a few hundred years? Maybe. She has _maybe_ a decade, probably less. SHIELD’s just going to work her until she’s in too much pain to work, then they’re going to leave her for dead. They have no intention of trying to heal her. Why would they, she’s one of their best operatives.”

“Do you?”

“What?”

“Do you have an intention of healing her? You’re into that sort of thing.”

“Why must you word it like that?” Damian mutters, before answering in full, “I intended to talk to Dr. Palmer, I had actually emailed him about meeting up to talk about what he could do to stabilize someone with molecular disequilibrium but you made me fake my death so that was put on hold.”

“You really think Palmer could help?”

“Hey, if anyone could figure out how to fix fucked up molecules, it’d be the guy nicknamed _‘The Atom’_ right?” Damian flinches when Ghost appears in front of him, Rose spins around to face her as well.

Ghost takes off her helmet, eyeing them both suspiciously and critically. “You wish to help me?” She asks, clearly not believing them.

Damian shrugs, “Yeah. You’re dying, you deserve to have someone actually _try_ to save your life rather than just planning to work you to death.” Ghost just stared at them, like she was trying to figure out a particularly hard puzzle.

Rose spoke up after a while of silence, “Okay since we now know HYDRA is the one wanting you dead, we can probably head back to Gotham. Don’t think they’re smart enough to get into your place.” Rose says, clapping Damian on the shoulder and heading back to their car.

“You wanna come with us? We can stop by Dr. Palmer’s lab first, talk to him.” Damian offers, keeping eye contact.

“I-I don’t understand. I’m- I’m supposed to kill you and your offering to help me?”

“You’re dying and you’re in pain. No one should have to live like that, not without at least one person doing all they can to help. SHIELD is not that person. I can show you their files, they have zero intention of healing you. Zero plans.” Damian states, “I can’t promise we’ll heal you, all I can promise is we’ll _try_. We’ll do everything we can to help you.” Damian takes a deep breath, “ Also, I hope you don’t mind dogs because there’s one in our backseat. You can take shotgun but, there’s still a dog, if you want to come with us.” Damian says, pointing to the car.

Ava looked like she wanted to go, she did, but she also seemed hesitant, “They won’t be happy if I leave.”

“Who gives a shit?” Damian asks, which causes her to raise her eyebrows, clearly surprised, “You could probably destroy SHIELD single-handedly. But you won’t have to, because if they come after you, I’ll fight with you. Also, I’ll destabilize SHIELD, dump all their information onto the web and send all the agents search and internet history to their loved ones.” Damian shrugs, “SHIELD will not be a problem. Regardless of if you come with us, I’ll protect you from SHIELD, prevent them from going after you.”

“You’re so young, but so confident.” Ava walks forward, stopping just in front, “Shall we go?” She asks hesitantly.

“Lets,” Damian says with a smile, gesturing for her to follow him to the car, which was now a convertible again.

_-Dr. Palmer’s lab-_

“Molecular Disequilibrium is quite interesting,” Ryan comments, both he and Dr. Palmer were researching the mentioned disorder. After Batgirl’s somewhat cryptic email about it shortly before her demise, they had been researching it, its effects and any potential treatment. In regards to the last, they had come up empty.

“It is. But it’s also frustrating. What causes molecular disequilibrium? How do we fix it? How do we treat it? We have no answers for any of these questions.” Dr. Palmer was clearly stressing. Which was understandable, someone he knew, someone he worked with had died. And left him with this puzzling assignment. 

“I’m sure we’ll figure it out eventually, can’t be any harder than shrinking and growing, right?” 

“Yeah. It’s just, frustrating. Damian wanted to talk to me about it before he died and now- now it feels like I need to solve it, create a cure for this obscure disorder.” Damian’s death hit the superhero community hard. Although there were some, like the Supers who weren’t convinced he was actually dead. Something about the Bats doing this every other week. Some people took a day off to mourn, others, like Dr. Palmer, worked themselves to death.

“Can we talk about it now?” Someone asks, and when both scientists look up they see Ravager and Damian on their ceiling.

“How-” 

Damian shrugs, “It’s complicated,” cutting Dr. Palmer’s question off while he drops down to the ground, Ravager closely following. He squeaks when Palmer engulfs him in a tight hug.

“Okay, if we could cut the dramatics, our friend needs help.” Rose says.

“Friend?” Ryan asks, Dr. Palmer pulls back from his hug enough to look around. They were the only four in the lab. 

Until they weren’t. 

The sudden appearance of someone in a white suit caused both men to jump.

“This is Ava Starr. We figured you could help her, she’s why I emailed you about molecular disequilibrium.” Damian explains while Ava pulls off her helmet.

“Damian said you might be able to help me.”

“We can try.” Dr. Palmer states, “We’re still researching molecular disequilibrium, it’d be helpful if we knew what caused it, what sort affects it can have.” Dr. Palmer releases Damian from the hug and moves back to his work station.

“My father was working on a quantum tunnel. He took too many risks and it exploded, I was there along with my parents. They died, but I survived. When the firemen tried to pick me up, their hands phased right through me.”

“Okay, so most likely has to do with quantum energy, and you can shift your molecules. Or they shift on you. I take it that’s how you did your little appearing act?”

“Yes. I can phase out of the visible spectrum. I can also change how much power my attacks will have.”

“Got it. So, if this is due to be exposed to mass amounts of quantum energy, it all moving through your body and infecting your cells, we may be able to reverse it. You had a quantum flood, maybe we could make a quantum vacuum? Suck all the quantum particles out?”

“That could kill her, we don’t know if the quantum particles that infected her are what kept her alive while they killed her parents. We’d have to do tests.”

“We’d have to recreate the environment in which Ava was initially infected.” Dr. Palmer states, his attention snapping to Damian, “Can you get me a list of all the parts Mr Starr used when he made his Quantum Tunnel? Blueprints, instructions, how he put them together, what was in the air, what was around them, time of year, the year, everything, no matter how small or miniscule the detail. We’re talking Quantum tech, meaning the smallest thing could’ve made the difference between life and death.”

“I’ll see what I can do. “ Damian says, “Ava, do you want to stay here or come to Gotham with me?”

Ava hesitates before answering, “I would like to stay here, if possible. Help in any way I can.”

“Yeah, I have a spare bedroom in my apartment. Do you mind if we scan you? See your readouts? Maybe we can find something to help, at the very least we could give an estimate of how long we have before, before the decay gets too bad.” Dr. Palmer says, gesturing to a large circular machine off in the corner.

“Thank you.” 

“We should probably introduce ourselves, I’m Ryan Choi, the over eager one is Dr. Raymond Palmer.” Ryan introduces.

“Please just call me Ray.” Palmer states before his brow scrunches in consideration, “Ava, are you in pain?”

“Yes. It’s constant. I am being ripped apart and put back together every second of every day.”

“Oh. Ok, while Damian is working on getting us that environment list, we’re going to figure out pain medication. Have you tried commercially available stuff? The non-commercially available stuff?”

“We’re gonna head out, take care Ava. I’ll be back to visit soon.” Damian says, waving goodbye before he and Rose head out one of the windows.

“Ryan, can we hack into her medical records?” Palmer was asking as the pair headed out.

“You sure Ava will be good with them?” Rose asks as they head back to the car.

“They’re the only people I know who know about Quantum stuff, so maybe? At the very least, they’re going to spam her with movies and make what’s left of her life good.” Damian says, shrugging and getting into shotgun. James was sleeping in the backseat.

“Yeah. Next stop, Wayne Manor to share the good news with your family. HYDRA is trying to kill you.” Rose says as they pull onto the road and start heading to Gotham.

“Not really news, I figured they be trying to do that since I stole their Asset. Really wish you had investigated this _before_ we faked my death, could’ve saved us a lot of trouble.”

“Oh please, you’d be really dead. Ava would still be after you and you’d be dead. Besides, we now have a dog. That wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t fake your death.”

“Fair.”

“Why James?”

“I thought we already talked about this?”

“I mean, is it really a good idea to name an attack dog after a former brainwashed assassin?”

“... He’s named James _because_ of Barnes’ time as a HYDRA attack dog. Barnes is healing, he’s getting better, adjusting to society. I want the same for James. I name my animals in ways specific to each of them, with James, I want him to be able to be happy, to go to a dog park and run free and play with the other dogs, without the worry he might attack someone. Without the worry, someone might force us to put him down because of his past. Naming him James gives me hope.”

“Sappy.”

_-Wayne Manor-_

They don’t knock. They don’t announce their presence. Damian and Rose just walk in with James by their side. They don’t see anyone so they head up to Damian’s room. Rose goes through his bookshelf while Damian gets back to training and rehabilitating James. They left the door wide open.

A few hours later, Drake walks by, neither of the occupants notice until he comes back and walks into the room, eyeing them all. James was getting better but his first instinct was still to attack the unknown so Damian had to hold him back. 

“What do you want Drake?” Damian asks, glaring up at his brother. Drake reaches forward, as if to touch him, but pulls back sharply when James barks loudly. 

Now, the thing is, when you live with multiple dogs, you end up being able to distinguish their barks from one another. And James, James didn’t sound like Ace or Titus, which meant that those that could hear James barking were heading to his room. Because why was there a strange dog in the Manor? Also, neither Titus nor Ace bark all that much, so them barking was enough for the family to come to see regardless. 

“Damian!” Richard shouts, immediately moving toward him but stopping when James starts barking again.

“If you all could stop that, that’d be great,” Damian asks, calming James down. Which wasn’t easy as all the strangers were getting his hackles raised.

“Where’d you get the dog?”

“It was some assholes attack dog. Barely knows a kind touch. I’m trying to train him, rehabilitate him. Pennyworth would you be able to assist me with this?”

“Of course Master Damian, what is his name?”

“James.” A few of the family raised their eyebrows.

“Trust me, the reason is super sappy,” Rose remarks, not looking up from the book she had chosen to read. The entire family looks over as if realizing she was in the room for the first time since they entered. Which, it probably was, considering their focus was on Damian.

“Why’d you fake your death?”

Damian shrugs, “HYDRA was trying to kill me, it got complicated. “

“OH MY GOD, WE NEED TO TELL BABS” Richard yells, running out of the room.

“Okay. Can you please leave? You’re upsetting James.” Damian requests and his family files out.

“Shall we begin James’ training Master Damian?”

“Yes please.”

_-Later-_

“Grayson said you wanted to talk to me?” Damian asks, walking into the clocktower in his robin uniform. Apparently, the GCPD had given his Batgirl uniform to Slade upon Rose’s request/blackmail/threats, which meant Damian had to track the man down to get his uniform back. Joy. Gordon was sitting at her computer, not facing him, not even looking at him. “Gordon?” Damian calls, walking closer to the woman, not noticing the net trap on the floor until it had already pulled him up. Once he was up, Gordon turned around and wheeled over to him, “Is this revenge?” Damian asks before he actually gets a good look at Gordon, when he does, he kind of regrets his words. Her eyes were red and puffy, she looked so pissed off but so relieved.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Damian hated that question. Especially when it sounded so broken. So full of hurt and anger.

“Rose sprung it on me. Made it sound like it was uber important I tell no one. And, I didn’t exactly have my phone on me, not like I could call you.” Damian says, he did regret not telling his family, especially the girls. His father and brothers had gotten suspicious immediately and suspected he had faked his death. But his sisters, they had mourned him. Cain had given him the tightest, longest hug he’d ever been given when she saw him at the manor.

“What happened?”

“HYDRA put a bounty on my head. Except we didn’t know it was HYDRA, someone was trying to kill me, Sly.” Damian shrugs, “Rose had me fake my death so we could investigate in peace. Not that she told me that at the time. All she said was that it was very important we fake my death, I don’t ask questions and just go with her. She sounded desperate, and Richard may be rubbing off on me because I agreed against logical reason.”

“That was a mistake.”

“I agree.” The net trap fell, Damian didn’t bother trying to land on his feet, just did his best to land in a way that would cause him the least pain. Damian stood up, stepping out of the netting and ends up next to Gordon. “I’m sorry,” Damian says finally. 

A moment later Gordon pulls him down into a hug, squeezing him tightly, Damian is still in shock for a moment before he returns the hug.

“Don’t do it again.”

“Okay.”

“I’m serious! Promise me you won’t do this again without telling me.”

“I promise Barbara, I won’t fake my death without telling you.” Damian could feel Barbara nodding into his shoulder. This was probably going to be a long hug too, he wondered when he’d get to go on patrol.

“You’re not patrolling tonight.” Barbara states, and Damian wants to argue, but her tone. She doesn’t want him to go. To potentially get himself killed for real.

“Okay.”

Damian remains in the Clocktower for the rest of the night, being an annoyance to Barbara and training intermittently. Sometime after midnight, Brown came in. She started to say something to Barbara before she saw Damian and for the first time of that day, Damian got engulfed in a tight and long hug. 

“You’re a fucking asshole,” Brown mutters.

Well. At least Brown’s still treating him the same. Aside from the hug.

_-Avengers’ Tower-_

Damian was in full Sly gear. Contacts to make his eyes blue, square glasses, makeup and contouring to make his face more feminine, long silver wig currently braided into a fishtail with a beanie on top, stuffed bra. And he was sitting on the Avengers’ couch. Well, one of their couches, the one in the main room. Stark had given Sly full access to Avengers’ common floors and a floor of her own. Something about wanting her to have options for places to go if she needs a break.

Damian was playing on his phone, waiting for the Avengers’ to arrive, he had asked JARVIS to call them up/down to the floor. He put the phone away when he heard the elevator. Once they were out of the elevator and walking in he stands to face them. They all stop dead in their tracks, just staring at him.

“I’ve been told I need to apologize to you? Apparently faking my death without telling anyone is sociopathic and going to give people trust issues and heart attacks.” Not that Kent said any of those words, but, that was the best way to sum up the three-hour long lecture Damian had gotten from the alien. Followed by another tight and long hug. Those were starting to become a pattern.

“You’re alive?”

“Never died. Long story.”

Rogers moves first, stepping forward until he was right in front of Damian before pulling him into a bone-crushing hug. The others moved after that, giving Damian a big tight group hug. 

“I swear this better not last more than an hour.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should I be sorry? Maybe.
> 
> Yes, Jarvis saying Bats doesn't respond the same to his daughters dying as his sons is 100% a dig at how he non-reacted when Stephanie died. You go fucking mental when Jason dies, but someone under your purview dies in your own fucking city you go, hmmm, shes not dead.
> 
> Part of this is definitely inspired by that tumblr post about how the Bats constantly fake their deaths. And the other heros just have to. deal with it. 
> 
> The Unknown Company and the guy i mentioned are my original creations. Not from DC, to my knowledge. 
> 
> Comment any questions you have or literally anything, i like comments.  
If you'd prefer to be anonymous with your questions and whatnot, bug me on tumblr. It's linked a couple chapters back, it's also the same name as my pen name here.


	6. We're starting Ironman 3 now because I say so and I was watching it when I started writing the chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have tests to write, but my brain made me write this first before I could study. Fuck you too brain. Also, I've never had _three_ different versions of a chapter. The first went a bit too dark, the second was just weird and involved characters I would need to study more to actually be okay with posting that, this one is... interesting.

Damian could understand being on house arrest. He did fake his death and not tell anyone. He could understand if his father didn’t want him going out for a while and whatnot. 

What he did _not_ understand is where Stark got off putting him on house arrest. The man had no power of him and yet Stark wouldn’t let Damian- Sly- leave Avenger’s Tower. The worst part was the other Avengers were in on it and his family were completely unsympathetic. Jon had been nice enough to bring over some clothes, makeup and wigs so he could keep the Sly charade going while under Tower arrest, but that also meant Damian had to deal with him crying into his chest about Damian faking his death and whatnot. 

Damian’s not entirely sure the stuff was worth it.

Still, for the past week, this had been his life. He definitely spent a couple of days just in his room (which was an entire floor of the tower- that was decadent and too much even by Damian’s standards), he also got lost exactly once and made JARVIS swear to never tell anyone. But otherwise, he hung out in the Avenger’s common area, acting as Sly and doing his damndest not to curse his brothers when they updated social media about him being a recluse, and hence why he wasn’t appearing anywhere. He knows when he leaves this place he’s going to have to keep that up. Still, keeping up with Sly’s voice wasn’t the easiest thing to do for seven days straight. It’s not hard, but it’s not pleasant to only be able to speak in a voice that isn’t yours.

“Hey,” Damian looked up from his phone, from where Oracle was updating him on Barnes and his grandparents adjustment to Kansas (Damian still doesn’t know why father sent them out there a couple of weeks backs, but Father is not one to share), to look at the Captain, who was sitting down beside him on the couch, “Me, Widow and Hawkeye are going on a mission, so it’ll just be you and Tony here.”

Damian furrows his brow, that denomination doesn’t make sense. There were five avengers living in the tower last he checked, “What about Dr. Banner?”

“He flew out to India yesterday, he wanted to do more work out there. Don’t worry, I’m sure you and Tony’ll get along great.”

He actually didn’t mind Stark most of the time, the time when he’s not holding Damian prisoner in the tower. “We’ll get along when I’m allowed to leave the tower again.” Damian snarks, going back to his phone. Dr. Palmer had started giving him updates on Ava’s condition. So far, it’s not good. They’re able to slow her deterioration but they can’t stop it altogether. They aren’t entirely sure why it’s happening, and how to fix it. Currently, they were thinking of simulating the initial explosion that made Ava like she is. But they’re lacking quite a bit of information, mainly where and how was the Quantum tunnel wrong, and what materials were used?

“Maybe if you didn’t nearly die, you wouldn’t be on house arrest.” Damian rolls his eyes, texting Dr. Palmer that he’d toss Drake the case in case he could be useful and dig up useful information.

“I didn’t almost die. I was perfectly fine the entire time. You thought I died, I was perfectly fine hanging with my sister.” Damian states, which wasn’t entirely true, he was almost killed by Ava, but, semantics.

“Maybe you should tell people who care about you when you’re going to do that sort of thing.” The Captain says, clearly unhappy with Damian’s deliberate choice to not tell them.

“Not unless you get good at acting real soon. What’s the point of faking my death if those who care for me are not so distraught that’s it’s convincing and not suspicious? God, you have never had to publicly fake your death and disappear to China because an evil organization wants your head on a platter, and it shows.”

“See. You say things like that, I want to let you out of the tower even less.” Stark cuts in, walking over to the couch. He had just arrived a few minutes prior and Damian had been pointedly ignoring him.

“Really? So if I lie and say my life has been all gumdrops and lollipops I’ll be able to actually live my life?” Damian asks sarcastically, he knows the answer to that.

Rogers sighs, and opened his mouth to what Damian would presume would be a lecture when Damian’s phone rings. 

“Sorry, gotta take this.” Damian stands up and answers the phone without looking, walking away from the pair, “Hello,”

_“You looked like you could use a save.” _ Gordon states as greeting.

“You’re not wrong. How are things back home?”

_ “Same old, same old. How’s the tower?”_

“Dreadfully boring.”

_”Rogers looks to be leaving soon, so I think you’re safe.” _

“If you say so, talk to you later,” with that, Gordon hangs up. Damian turns to see Steve standing up.

“I gotta go, be good.” Who he was talking to specifically was a mystery, or maybe he was talking to both of them, either way, he leaves with those as his final words.

“Can we at _least_ go to the park or something? I swear I’m getting cabin fever.”

Stark seemed to think for a while before nodding, “Yeah, sure, what harm could come of it?” 

“Yes” Damian cheers quietly and follows Stark to the elevator, heading down to the garage and heading out. Stark parks a short distance from Central Park and the pair walk from there. Damian’s honestly happy enough to just be breathing fresh air, he doesn’t really pay attention to his surroundings as they walk, just happy to not be in the tower. So he doesn’t notice someone watching, he doesn’t notice them coming up to him until they grab his arm. Damian’s attention immediately snaps to the kid holding his arm, barely restraining himself from flipping the kid and breaking his hold. It takes him a moment to place why he would immediately not defend himself. It’s because he knows the kid. “Billy. What’re you doing here?” Didn’t he normally operate out of Philly?

“I wanted to talk to you.” Billy glances over at Stark, who had been watching the interaction with a raised eyebrow, “Privately.” He adds.

Damian turns to Stark, “Can you please wait on that bench?” Damian asks, pointing to a bench out of hearing range, “Please? I promise we won’t get up to anything.” Stark looks like he wants to deny Damian’s request but sighs and walks over to a bench closer than the one Damian pointed at. One in hearing range.

“Sly, right?” Billy asks, quietly enough Stark couldn’t hear them.

Damian’s smile was sharp, “So you’re caught up. What do you want Billy?” Damian asks, something tells him Billy isn’t here for a social call.

Billy takes his hand off Damian’s arm to start using them to enunciate his points, “Right, so you know how you got in trouble with your last team because you didn’t have adult permission?”

“There was more to it than that, but yes. I remember the trouble I got into with the Titans. What does that have to do with you?”

“Well I was thinking, what if we got a team together?”

“Another team? Without a Leaguer’s permission? Yeah, that’s going to end well. I’m probably going to be grounded until I’m fifty.” Damian rolls his eyes and turns around to go, but Billy grabs his arm.

“But you would have a Leaguer’s permission.” Damian turns around, an eyebrow raised. He’s pretty sure, even though Shazam is considered part of the JL, everyone still knows he’s a kid. “You’d have adult permission, with an adult on the team. They couldn’t say it’s unsanctioned and disband it.”

“I’m pretty sure the Justice League knows you’re a kid.”

“I’m a teenager, and older than you.” Billy snarks, “But they don’t. I haven’t told anyone. Except Cyborg, but he hasn’t told anyone.”

“You literally told all the sidekicks.”

“Well yeah, you’re kids too. Come on, think about it, wouldn’t a new team be awesome?”

Damian sighs, he was going to be spread way too thin. “Who do you want on the team?”

Billy whoops with joy before he says, “I was thinking Abuse, Nobody, Superboy and Red Arrow. Along with you and me. Three girls, three boys.”

“That’s four boys and two girls.” Damian corrects and Billy just gestures to Damian’s current look. Which, fair.

“You already go to girls night.”

“Yes I do.” Damian sighs, “Fine. Do you want me to recruit them or…”

“Well, I could probably get Superboy on board, and I know Abuse and Nobody are your friends so you’d probably have an easier time getting them on board. And Red Arrow scares me.”

“So you want me to recruit ninety percent of the team? Great. Uh,” Damian pulls out his phone -Sly’s phone, meaning his friend’s contact numbers weren’t in there, “give me your number.” Billy immediately takes the phone and starts typing in his number,” I’m going to call Oracle and ask her to get someone to drop my real phone off at a safe house, you’re going to pick it up and text Abuse and Nobody to ask if they want to be part of your team. Or you can bring it to me and I can do it.” Billy hands the phone back to Damian after sending himself a quick text. 

“Thank you,”

“Don’t- it’s nothing. But, I really think you should be asking Abuse and Nobody. I’m friends with literally everyone you named, you’re friends with Superboy. I think it’d be in your best interest and the team’s if you become friends with Abuse and Nobody first.”

“You think?”

“I’d also recommend getting Red Arrows friendship but I think the best you can hope for it her respect. I can set up a meeting with Abuse and Nobody if you don’t want to brave Gotham by your lonesome.”

“Yeah, that’d be great.”

Damian hesitates, taking in Billy’s nervous stance, “Why come to me? Why not go to Superboy? Or even my father?”

“Dude, you literally created a brand new identity two-fold earlier this year, and you’re already well known throughout the world, and no one even tries to mess with you. You’re badass. Also, you’ve gotten together two teams previously without any help from anyone in the League, you’re around my age and I figured you’d be the best person to go to.”

“And you’re nervous because…”

“I’m not good at making friends and you kind of scare me.”

“...Only kind of?” Billy swallows audibly at Damian’s tone, which was the reaction Damian was hoping for. Always good to incite fear in Metas. “Three humans and three metas is a good balance. I’ll try to get Red Arrow on board. Bye Billy.” With that, Damian turns and heads over to Stark. “See? Nothing happened.” Damian says when he reaches Stark. Who, weirdly enough, was glaring at Billy. Damian furrows his brows and turns to look at Billy, who was very pointedly not looking in their direction. Damian turns back to Stark, raising an eyebrow, “Everything okay Mr. Stark?” Which finally got Stark’s attention on Damian. 

“Yeah, yeah,” The man says, getting up and gently guiding Damian away, along the walking path, “Just, who was that kid?”

“Billy. He’s a friend. Why?”

“Just, I might’ve run facial rec on him, and name searched him. Well, I had JARVIS do this.”

“Billy’s not a bad guy,”

“He stole a car,”

Really? “He’s a teenager. You never went joyriding?”

“Have you?”

“Yeah,” In the Batmobile, the BatHog, more that his father will never know about.

“Really?” Stark’s eyebrows were up, clearly surprised at Damian’s admission.

“Well, Batman can’t really report his cars stolen, can he?” 

“You stole from _Batman_?”

“His stuff is voice-activated! It’s like he’s begging for it to be stolen.” Really he had made the cars voice-activated because his brothers kept taking them out and he wanted that to stop. Oops.

“You can imitate Batman’s voice?”

“You can’t?” Damian asks, using Batman’s voice, returning to Sly’s to say, “It’s not that hard.” 

“For you maybe.” Stark says, shaking his head, “I knew you were a mimic but it’s so weird to see you speak and hear a different voice come out.”

Well, he’s gonna be really weirded out when he hears Damian’s real voice come out of his mouth. “Just takes practice,” Damian shrugs.

“I’ll take your word for that,” Stark says, chuckling.

Damian breathes in deeply, “Fresh air is nice, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it, you were too cooped up.”

“Does that mean I can go home without you tracking me down?”

“Are you going to fake your death again?”

“Not within the year.”

“We’re in the last month of the year.”

“Yeah, and I have no plans to fake my death within the month. You know, you’re lucky my teachers accept online assignments, otherwise, you’d be dealing with a very angry Scottish woman.” In reality, Damian was ahead of his class so he could afford to disappear for weeks, as long as his father calls him into school. 

“Well, I’m glad for that. But it’s not comforting that you can only say you have no plans to fake your death within the month. What about next year?”

“I can’t predict the future Mr. Stark. If I need to, I will fake my death again, and whether or not you’re told will depend on whether it’s important for the mission if you know or not.”

“See, that doesn’t make me want to let you go. It makes me scared for your future.”

“Mr. Stark, I have died before and I will die again, nothing will change that. That is truth. And you need to understand, I have no problem with that. When I wear a mask and go out at night, I’m aware death is a possibility. I have no fear of it. I’m aware I could lose my family every night I’m out, I’ve made peace with that. When it happens, I will mourn, I will remember them, and I will move on. You work in a very dangerous world now, you should prepare for that too.”

Stark takes a while before responding, “Saying stuff like that makes me worry. Because you sound like you’re an adult but you’re a kid, you shouldn’t have to be at peace with death. You shouldn’t have to worry about losing your family.”

“I shouldn’t have to, but I’ve made my choice. I won’t stop.”

“I’m not asking you to, just be careful. And please don’t give me a heart attack.”

“I’m always careful. And if you don’t want a heart attack, don’t monitor me.”

“Kid that’s going to make me have a heart attack. What if you get hurt?”

Damian raises an eyebrow at Stark, “Do you monitor me now? Uh, before my fake death?” Because if he did, Stark should already know Batgirl gets hurt every night.

“Yeah.”

“O-K” Damian clears his throat before changing the subject, “What’re your plans for December?”

“Working. Maybe do a holiday party or something? What about you? Family Christmas Party you need to get to eventually?”

“I’m Muslim.”

“Do you have a December celebration?”

“No, my family is Jewish, so we celebrate Hannukah some years.”

“Only some?”

“People work, they aren’t that devout, sometimes it’s just too hard.” Damian knows his father didn’t celebrate certain holidays because it reminded him too much of his parents. Actually, considering Martha and Thomas Wayne are actually here in this dimension now, the holidays will be far more interesting.

“Ah, I get it. I don’t celebrate Christmas really, makes me think too much of my parents.”

“So what? You just sit in your tower all bah humbug?”

“No, I actually go to Malibu. Pepper’s already over there, working SI from that seaboard. Plan was actually to head out later today.”

“So I’m going home.” If Stark was leaving New York then there was no reason for Damian to stay here!

“No, you’re coming with me.” What.

“Why?”

“Because you scared me last week, and I’m not confident you won’t run off and do it again.”

“Ugh,” Damian groans but doesn’t argue further. If he’s learned anything, it’s that Stark is incredibly stubborn and won’t listen to any reasoning that not his own. Unless they make a really good argument that Damian can’t make because he can’t actually promise he won’t fake his death again. 

“Yeah, yeah, end of the world. Let’s go, I had them pack you up, all that’s left is getting on the plane,” Stark says, steering them back to the car.

“Great,” Damian grumbles but follows diligently. 

_-Batcave-_

“Master Bruce, if I may be so bold, did you expect Master Damian to take to Batgirl in such a way?” Alfred asks while tidying up the cave. Bruce was sitting at the Batcomputer, some of the monitors were filled with Batgirl’s exploits. Her successes. Her failures. Her death and resurgence. Then disappearance when Sly remained with the Avengers in New York

“I didn’t think Damian would ever like Batgirl. I expected him to throw a tantrum, be upset, I expected Barbara to be angry. Never in a million years did I expect them both to agree with my decision and actually do it. It was supposed to be a lesson on breaking rules. Now I feel like I need to ask Diana to speak with Damian.” Bruce explains, he was only so candid with Alfred when there was no one else around. Which there wasn’t. The cave was abandoned save for Alfred and Bruce.

“Ms. Prince? Why?”

“I think she’ll be helpful for Damian.” But he doesn’t expand on that.

_-Malibu House-_

“Nifty house,” Damian says, grabbing his bags from the car Stark drove from the airport to the house. 

“Nifty?” Stark asks, grabbing his own bags.

“It’s a word.”

“Not one that’s been used in this decade.” With that, Stark leads them into the house.

“If you say so old man,” Damian grumbles but follows dutifully.

“Old man? You used the word Nifty five seconds ago.”

“And that somehow makes me older than the person who grew up during the Cold War?”

Stark scoffs, “Guest bedroom is thattaway,” He says, pointing to the general direction the guest bedrooms were

“You’re soooo helpful.” Damian says and heads that direction.

_”Third door on your right,” _ JARVIS intones from somewhere. Damian does his best not to jump, he doesn’t understand why he didn’t think JARVIS would be here, but it still surprised him. Still, Damian followed JARVIS’s instructions and entered the guest room. _ “Sir has asked me to inform you that he will be in his lab and if you require anything to ask me. You are still not allowed to leave the premises and the doors will not open for you unless in the event of an emergency”_ JARVIS says as Damian’s unpacking.

“Thanks.” Damian says, putting away his clothes and stopping short when he realizes something, “Hey JARVIS? I had a case at the Tower, it looks like a metal briefcase, is locked with a biometric scan, it had my Batgirl suit in it? Do you know where it is?”

_” Mr. Stark wishes for a peaceful retreat, so superheroing has been left in New York” _

“Are you _shitting_ me,” Damian mutters, flopping down onto his bed.

_ “My apologies Ms. Wilson, however, I have been given some alternate entertainment options if you would like to see them.” _ JARVIS supplies. Well, anything would be better than being miserable in a guest room.

“Sure, where are they?” Damian asks, getting up and walking out of the bedroom.

_ “You can enter the room directly across from yours, it’s a media room. I have prepared several playlists and selected a few already made for your viewing pleasure.” _

Damian enters the room and the TV lights up, playlist icons and their names appear on the screen. Damian grabs the remote off the coffee table and flicks through them, stopping on one of the cooking playlists and hits play.

_Excellent choice madam.”_ Damian rolls his eyes and curls up on the couch, settling in to watch.

_-Stark’s Lab-_

“How’s the kid J?” Tony asks, tinkering.

_”She has just settled down to watch some cooking videos in one of the media rooms.” _

“Good, good. Am I doing the right thing? It’s just, a week ago, she was dead. We thought she was dead, she had been killed and ever since. It’s not just New York haunting my nightmares anymore. And she’s-she’s cavalier. She doesn’t _care_. Not about her fake death or any effect it had on the people that care about her. I mean, how-how can anybody be like that? To care so little or assume people care so little that you can just do _that_.” Tony had stopped tinking and just started gesticulating wildly.

_ “If I may, Sir, I do not believe Ms. Wilson does not care, but merely she has accepted that those around her will die. She was raised in a peculiar home, and she goes out most nights dressed as a Bat, it’s quite possible she has merely been trained to accept that people will die, and sometimes those deaths will be fake. But sometimes they won’t and they should all be mourned. “_

“Yeah, I guess,” Tony mutters, “Hey, give me the Wilson updates.” 

_” Of course Sir. Rose, Joseph and Grant Wilson are all currently in Australia, however, they are not together. Slade Wilson is in Russia on a contract, what the contract is, I’m afraid I cannot say.” _

“And not one of them has called Sly for the holidays. Maybe it’s better I keep her here. At least she’s wanted. What about that Billy kid she was talking to earlier?”

_ “I am unaware if they have corresponded. I do not have access to her phone as that would violate the privacy protocols you installed, Sir.” _

“I know that. Figured I’d ask if you knew he’d called. Or anyone. Has she talked to anyone other than me today?”

_ “Not to my knowledge, Sir. And Ms. Potts would like me to inform you that she will have a late night at the office so she will be crashing at the downtown apartment. “_

“Okay. Uh, crank the music J, let’s get tinkering.” JARVIS wordlessly turns on some of Tony’s music as the man himself goes back to tinkering with his suits.

_-The next day-_

Damian was in the kitchen, cataloguing every ingredient they had and all the tools present. The cooking videos had been somewhat addictive and since he was housebound, he might as well try making some of the stuff.

“Hey Jarvis, can I order stuff?” Damian asks, he could make some of the things he saw, but the stuff he wanted to make required some more stuff than what was present in Stark’s kitchen.

_”Of course Ms Wilson. What do you need?” _

Damian lists off all the appliances and ingredients he needed, then asks, “How long till they get here?”

_ “Tomorrow afternoon at the latest, Ms Wilson.” _

“Cool.” With that, Damian goes off exploring. “Hey, Jarvis?” Damian calls, exploring the second floor of the home, “Am I allowed to call out?”

_ “Call out Ms Wilson?” _ JARVIS asks, clearly not understand what Damian meant.

“Talk to people who aren’t Tony with my phone?”

_ “Of course you are able to call out Ms Wilson. You are allowed contact with the outside world, you are just not allowed to enter it.” _

“What joy.” Damian deadpans, pulling out his phone and calling Oracle. “Hey, I need a favour.”

“You always need favours. What is it?”

“I need you to arrange a meeting between Shazam, Abuse and Nobody. Civis or not, just arrange the meeting please?”

“And what do I get in return?”

“My blackmail file on B?”

“How do you know I don’t already have it?”

“You have pictures of him smiling and holding back laughter as Hood and Red fight in the background?”

“When did this happen?” Oracle demands.

“You get that information after you set up the meeting.” Damian hangs up unceremoniously after that. He hesitates for a minute before calling the next person he needs to talk to.

“Who are you and how’d you get this number?” Is what he’s met with.

Shit. He can’t really explain. “It’s Batgirl.” He says, throwing on Barbara’s voice.

“Excuse me?”

“I- one moment,” Damian turns his attention to JARVIS-well the house in general- “Is there anywhere I can have a private conversation without you hearing?”

_” I have no censors in the bathrooms. Microphones and speakers will only activate if you yell or if there is a loud crash.” _

Damian sighs, but heads into a bathroom, returning to Emiko, using his regular Sly voice, “Please tell me you are up to date with Bat bullshit. It’s Sly, Wilson. Look, we need to talk.”

“Sly? What? God, what fucking Bat bullshit? You morons go through different things each week.”

“I can’t- can you ask your brother about it? I’m not exactly in a place to explain comfortably.”

“Yeah, what was that voice?”

“JARVIS. He’s Tony Stark’s AI.”

“Wait, Damian!?”

“How did that give you that revelation?” Seriously, how?

“Uh, Stark and some platinum blond chick who looks a lot like you in a wig with some contouring were photographed yesterday in central park and then at LAX. Gossip rags are a guilty pleasure.” Emiko admits.

“Well thank God for that. Look, I need to talk to you, where are you?”

“Well, Ollie got pissed at me, so I’ve been exiled to the Napa house, there are so many vineyards here.”

“How awful. I’m in Malibu, maybe you can come to see me,”

“You can’t come to me?”

“Nope, on house arrest.”

Emiko snorts, “And you’re staying in the house? Not trying to break out?”

“Never said that.”

“You _are_ trying to break out?”

“Mhm, hey, why don’t you give me your address? I can have a car sent over and bring you here, rather than making you take pubic transport.”

“I’ll text you the address. Text me when you’re planning on heading over, I can call _you_ a car.”

“Awesome. Great talking to you, bye.”

“Weirdest conversation ever Damian.” Were Emiko’s parting words. Damian hangs up and leaves the bathroom, heading back to the kitchen. Might as well make some food.

_-The next day-_

Damian was cooking, he had written down the recipe and was just letting Jarvis play the TV while he worked. It was nice background noise. But when Damian was tending a pot, the noise stopped. Damian turned to look, and saw colour bars on the TV with two small black swords crossed in the middle, surrounded by ten rings, each with a different symbol in them.

“JARVIS?” Damian asks, confused.

_ “It appears the Tv station has been hacked.” _ Helpful. The image changes to a man walking by a bunch of people on their knees. The angle changes to show the man’s face, bearded, tan, sunglasses on. The angle changes once more and narration starts.

_“Some people call me a terrorist,”_ Wow, Damian already wants to kill this person. Newsflash, people call you a terrorist, you’re probably a terrorist. Especially when that is followed by gunshots._ “I consider myself a teacher,” _Oh fuck you, Damian has had enough with terrorists. He doesn’t want to deal with more.

“JARVIS shut it off.”

“Belay that.” Stark immediately contradicts, Damian turns around to see Stark standing in the kitchen’s entryway, eyes glued to the TV.

_ “America,” _ Damian sighs, he doesn’t want to watch this, _ “ready for another lesson?”_ But he’s not really being given a choice. He needs to stay to finish cooking, Which, shit. Damian moves the pot off the heat, stirring it a bit as the terrorist drones on about Cheyenne Braves and Americans. Thankfully, it wasn’t ruined, it actually needed more time to cook, so Damian slid it back onto the heat, but kept a closer eye on it and the other things cooking. Trying to ignore the Terrorist as the man takes credit for a church bombing, Damian keeps cooking, trying to keep his mind busy. But cooking didn’t take up that much brainpower and the terrorist’s words wormed their way to Damian’s ears. _ “You continue to resist my attempts to educate you, sir. And now you’ve missed me again. You know who I am. You don’t know where I am. And you’ll never see me coming.” _ Thankfully, the broadcast cuts out then. 

Unthankfully, Stark says this, “JARVIS, play the news channels.”

_ “Of course Sir” _ JARVIS intones, and Damian can hear the news playing the background. Something about the manhunt for the Mandarin.

“Can you not do this somewhere else? I’d rather _not_ deal with terrorism in a place I consider safe.” Damian snaps. He grew up with certain beliefs thrust upon him, he grew up in a terrorist cell. He does not _want_ to hear about terrorism against his will in a place he would have to consider home for the foreseeable future. 

Stark looks at Damian for a moment before saying, “Go back to cartoons JARVIS, through the new up in my workshop,” and leaving the kitchen. 

Damian could hear the sound of some cartoon’s opening but he doesn’t pay attention. JARVIS speaks a couple of minutes after Stark leaves.

_ “Are you alright, Ms. Wilson?” _

“I’m fine, I just, I don’t like hearing about terrorists. It- It reminds me of my childhood. The League of Assassins, the people who raised me? They’re an eco-terrorist group. They believe that humanity is a plague on the Earth, and needs to be exterminated in order for the planet to thrive. I just, I see myself, when I see those videos of terrorists, of their loyal followers who kill without a second thought, or even the beginning of a question.” Damian explains, pointedly focusing on his cooking.

_ “I will do my best to shield you from any future broadcasts, Ms. Wilson.” _

“Thank you. Hey, has Mr. Stark been sleeping at all these past few days? I know he’s been hard at work in the lab,”

_ “Sir has no slept in 72 hours. 8 hours more and my protocols encourage me to sedate him.” _

Damian snorts and tries to hold back the rest of the laughter, the matter of fact tone, JARVIS’s crisp British accent, Damian’s frail emotional state (he did just have a breakdown), made that statement too funny. “How would you sedate him?” There’s also the fact that JARVIS doesn’t have a body.

_ “I have control of quite a few arms in the workshop. I can easily get a syringe and stab Sir if necessary.” _

“That’s good. You know, I have a brother, a bat brother, who doesn’t sleep most nights. Not because of nightmares, he just has stuff to do that he needs to get done, so he stays awake as much as possible and subsists off of coffee.” Damian smiles a bit, at the memory that pops up when he says that, “One time, I needed a favour, so I got him some Death Wish Coffee, strong coffee, figured he’d like it and he’d grant m my favour. He did, but he also didn’t sleep for two weeks. And I have since been banned from giving him gifts, and if I need a favour I had to email Batman first, and if Bats approves, he will forward it. I am not allowed to ask directly anymore.”

_ “Ms. Wilson, I must request, do NOT under ANY circumstances inform Sir of what you have just informed me. He stays up well enough without that level of coffee.” _

“Scouts honour Jarvis, won’t breathe a word.” With that, the two delve into silence and Damian goes back to cooking.

_-The Next Day-_

It was around noon when Damian went into the kitchen, he had been training all morning, a habit he picked up on his house arrest. He was planning to just make himself a sandwich, but stopped short when he saw the take out bag on the counter.

“Jarvis?” Damian calls, hoping the AI would explain.

_ “Sir requested I order out for you. He left five minutes ago to meet Colonel Rhodes, you are alone in the house. I believe the take out is an apology.” _ JARVIS explains. Which, great. Now he’s alone. Well, that makes his plan easier. 

“Thanks, Jarvis,” Damian says, grabbing the bag and heading to his room, no point in staying in the kitchen.

_ “I hope you enjoy your meal, Ms. Wilson. “_

Damian doesn’t respond, he doesn’t really know what to say so he just goes into his room and drops the bag off on his desk. He doesn’t really want to eat it, fast food had never been his favourite, he didn’t really eat when they would go to one of those places, he mostly just used his ‘food’ -if it could be called that- as a weapon against his family. “Hey JARVIS? Could you do me a favour?” Damian asks, opening up the laptop Stark had provided him.

_ “I will do my best, but there are somethings I cannot do for you.” _

“I’m working on a code,” Damian says, logging into the computer and pulling up the file, “It’s supposed to help the sensors in my cowl, so they can interpret heat signatures and stuff like that better,” Damian was talking out of his ass, he knows it, he just hopes JARVIS doesn’t, “but I’m stuck, could I get you to read it and help me finish it?”

_ “Ah, that is something I can do for you, Ms. Wilson. I have sent you an email, please attach the file containing the code and reply. “ _

Damian opens the email Jarvis had just sent and sends the code file back, waiting for Jarvis to read it. He had gotten the code from Oracle as an escape plan if he needed it. If it worked, JARVIS would forget these last few seconds, and not register Damian leaving the house. A few minutes passed and Jarvis said nothing, which might be a good sign, but it could also mean the code didn’t work. “Hey JARVIS?”

_ “Yes Ms Wilson?” _

“I think I’m just going to hang in my room, can I ask you not to let anyone in? I just want to be alone, and I don’t want Mr. Stark bothering me when he gets back. Can you not let anyone in for a couple of days? ”

_”Of course Ms Wilson, initiating Teenage Isolation Protocol. Although if you do not come out to eat, I will be forced to break that protocol.”_ Oh that would be bad.

“I have a mini-fridge and cupboards full of food, I’m pretty sure I could lock myself in here for a week and be fine by the end of it.” Both of that was true. The minifridge that apparently came with the room along with the cupboard it rested on was full of non-perishable foods.

_ “If you insist. I will not let anyone into your room for 48 hours. “ _

“Thank you JARVIS.” With that, Damian got up and left his room, heading to the front door, he had tried this on his first day, to test what JARVIS would do if Damian got too close to the door. If the code didn’t work, JARVIS would give him ten seconds to get away from the door before he informed Stark of what Damian was doing. Damian paused about a foot away from the door, JARVIS wasn’t warning him, nothing was happening. Hopefully, that meant the code was working, and JARVIS still believed Damian was in his room. Damian walked forward and pulled on the door, smiling when it opened. Gordon had said the code might not work if he made too much noise int he part of the house/property he wasn’t supposed to be in. So, doing his best to be silent, he made his way out of the house and off the property heading to the closest city.

Thankful that he never let Jarvis even have his phone number- he was with Stark constantly, not like the man would need it-, Damian texts Emiko, telling her he’d be in the city within the hour and at her place in six. Less than a minute later he gets a text back saying she’s arranged a car for him. Damian pockets his phone and resumes a light jog to the nearest city.

_-That night-_

“I’m surprised you didn’t give the bunny to the teenager, what’s her name…” Pepper trails off, she’d never been formally introduced to Batgirl’s ‘secret identity’, but she did know Tony had dragged the poor girl across the country.

“Sly actually uses stuffed animals as target practice, so, giant bunny probably wouldn’t have gone over well.” Tony says, shrugging, “Also she’s locked in her room and refuses to come out. Jarvis says she initiated Teenage Isolation Protocol, meaning that door is deadbolted and soundproofed and will only open in event of emergencies.”

“Why would you make that protocol?”

“Because she’s a teenager?” Tony shrugs, “ Jarvis said we had 42 hours until she’d come out, and when she does, I’m sure you’d love each other.”

“Mhmm, and what does her family think of you kidnapping her?” Pepper asks, a plucked eyebrow raised elegantly.

“Haven’t called, haven’t written. Her dad is one of, if not _the_, deadliest mercenaries out there and he hasn’t even wished her a happy holidays. I don’t think they care.”

“Well that can’t be true,”

“I don’t know Pep, aside from that one day in New York when we saw them together, I don’t think they’ve been around Sly at all.”

“Let’s talk to her about it in a couple of days, see what she thinks. For now, Mr. Stark, we should head to bed,”

_-Napa-_

“Ugh, it is so nice to use my own voice, and not have to wear a wig,” Damian says, laying on one of Emiko’s couches, wig discarded on the side table.

“Uh-huh, please explain the madness here, because Ollie was _incredibly_ unhelpful,” Emiko asks, sitting like a normal person on a chair, watching Damian with bemusement. It was odd for her to see him like this, normally he was strung so tight, cold, calculating and he didn’t really express his emotions much. But now, now he seemed more open. More fluid.

“I dressed up as Batgirl to save Todd from the Avengers because father forbid us from doing vigilante work outside of ARGUS approved cities in our masks, so I wore a different one and that is the costume Gordon sent to me. Then as punishment for revealing at least Gotham vigilantes tot he world, father made me Batgirl permanently. Gordon went along with it, training me to move as she did when she was Batgirl, I imitated her voice when out as batgirl. Yada yada, somehow it was decided the Avengers should know me out of the mask but I wasn’t about to tell them my real identity and everyone agreed that was a bad idea so Sly Wilson was born. She’s Talia and Slade’s daughter, Damian’s half-sister, and has too long platinum blonde hair and a softer less bubbly voice than Gordon.” Damian explains, giving Emiko the cliff notes version. He doesn’ really feel like going into the full explanation right now.

“Well, I still don’t understand but I don’t think I will, so let’s change the subject, why’d you contact me?”

“We’re friends?”

“Uh huh, you haven’t spoken to me since we both got grounded for the unsanctioned Titans fiasco.”

“I’ve been busy. Anyways, you’re right, I’m not just here because we’re friends. Billy wants to start up a team.”

“Billy _Batson_?” 

“You know another Billy we have in common? Look, the ideal team up would be you, me, Shazam, Superboy, Abuse and Nobody.”

“So Billy is having you round up your friends to become a team? Plus him.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what he was thinking. I’m making him meet with Abuse and Nobody to make friends on his own so they don’t just defer to me.”

“Mm. Well, Three metas, three humans, it’d be a good balance, _but_ I have a condition.”

“Which is?”

“We go on a mission together. Just you and me. You follow my orders and do as I say without asking any questions.”

Damian sits up, looking at how serious Emiko was, he shrugs, “Sure, but I can’t now. I only have 41 hours until Stark realizes I’m no longer at his house and tracks me down.”

“We can get a lot done in 41 hours. The mission won’t take that long.”

“I also don’t have a suit. Stark left mine in New York.”

“Well, then you’re lucky I have a spare that should fit you. Come on,” Emiko gets and walks away, leaving Damian to follow her. He grabs the platinum wig as he passes the side table and follows her. They head through a secret passage, down some stairs to a basement full of Arrow gear. “Why’d you bring the wig?”

“You’ll be working with me as Batgirl, you should get used to seeing me in a wig.”

“Uh huh, but it’s too long for a quiver.”

“I could put it up?”

Emiko rolls her eyes, “Give it to me, I’ll put it up, you get dressed.” She holds out one hand for the wig and the other with her old black, white and red costume. 

“If you say so,” Damian says, making the trade and heading off to change with some modicum of privacy. The costume was really a white t-shirt, thick black leggings, red arm wraps attached to fingerless gloves, a red belt, a black face mask and a weird red, black and gray apron thingy Damian never really understood. Damian takes his time changing, getting into the outfit that was slightly too long for him. It wasn’t ill-fitting, Emiko was just taller than him and the outfit _was_ custom made for her. Meaning the shirt goes low and rather than stopping at mid calves, the pants went to his ankles. Damian tucks the shirt in and ties the belt tight before walking over to meet Emiko, face mask in his hand.

“You took your sweet time,” Emiko remarks, already dressed in her red uniform, Platinum wig in one hand.

“Had to make sure you had time to put the hair up and get changed.”

“It’s an infinity bun, not exactly complicated, it’s all pinned up but still looks natural. Now sit, this thing has so many hair hooks.”

“It has to stay on my head and move like real hair almost constantly. It’s human hair and the highest quality possible.” Damian explains, sitting down, pulling on the wig cap he had pulled off earlier when he had pulled off the wig.

“Uh huh, it still can’t be pleasant to wear, and sleep in”

“Comfort is relative,” Damian says, moving his hands away from his head so Emiko could start putting the wig on. She clips the front onto his hair first, then he holds that down while she pulls it down around his head, clipping it in in the necessary areas. Damian lets go and shakes his head, the wig seemed to stay pretty well. “Alright, where are we going?” Damian asks getting up.

“You don’t need to know. Put on the mask.” Emiko orders, going over to a bow rack and grabbing two compact bows, one red, one black, Damian follows her order in the meantime. She hands the black one over to Damian who tests the pull strength and checks the sizing making sure it’s good for him. “Grab that quiver,” Emiko says, jutting her chin out in the direction of a green quiver, there was a space beside it, probably for another quiver- the one Emiko is buckling on Damian presumes. He grabs the other one and buckles it onto his back. “Only pull the arrows over your right shoulder blade. Do _not_ touch the other ones.”

“Why am I taking this quiver if I can only use a third of the arrows?”

“Because I’m telling you too. Grab some knives, hide them, we’re heading out.” With that Emiko turns and walks away. Damian grabs a few of the knives of the table, tucking them in the small hidey holes he had noticed while putting the suit one before following Emiko out to the garage. Where keys immediately flew at him. He caught them before they could hit him, raising an eyebrow at Emiko. “I presume you can follow?” Emiko asks, already straddling a bike, Damian presumed the keys were for the bike next to her.

“Yes.” He answers, getting on the other bike and turning the engine on.

“Then let’s go,” With that, Emiko speeds out the garage, Damian following closely. 

_-12 hours later-_

“You’re phone should be away.” Emiko states, gathering something that she refused to tell Damian about. They had broken into one of Luthor’s warehouses, knocked out all his men and then Damian’s phone had gone off.

“It’s a ‘Spoiler Alert’. Spoiler sends them off whenever something important happens,” Damian says, and a few taps later a video starts playing, Tony’s voice playing over the speakers,

_ “Here’s a little holiday greeting I’ve been wanting to send to the Mandarin, I just didn’t know how to phrase it until now. My name is Tony Stark and I’m not afraid of you. I know you’re a coward. So I’ve decided, that you just died, pal. I’m gonna come get the body. There’s no politics here. It’s just good old-fashioned revenge. There’s no Pentagon, it’s just you and me. And on the off chance you’re a man, here’s my home address. 10880 Malibu Point. 90265. I’ll leave the door unlocked.” _

The video stops there.

“Did he just-” Emiko starts, disbelieving.

“He gave his home address to a _terrorist_”

“Doesn’t he think _you’re_ there?” Emiko asks, which, yeah, good point. Stark thinks Sly is locked in her room at _that house_.

“Well. I’m glad I’m a terrible child. I am sincerely hoping he’s not _actually_ returning to that house.”

“Yeah, that’d be bad. Also, we’re done here. Let’s go.” Emiko says, leading the way out.

“Is there a point to you giving me next to no information about what we’re doing and why we’re travelling across the country?” Damian asks, following closely.

“That’s not your concern right now,” Emiko says climbing onto her bike and taking off without another word. Damian quickly follows. He gets the feeling that this might be revenge for something.

_-Malibu House-_

“Any word from Sly?” Tony asks as Pepper comes downstairs, after introducing Maya Hansen to her.

“Jarvis says she’s sleeping. And she’s the only one who can disable the Teenage Isolation Protocol,” Pepper finishes with a ‘you done screwed up’ expression. Which Tony understands.

“Yeah, that’s a bug, I have it under privacy protocols so I can’t _dis_able it without her permission. And Jarvis won’t communicate with her unless she opens up that channel.”

“Well we need to get out of here, can’t you break down the door with your suit?” Maya suggests.

“No the door’s reinforced. Besides, we’re fine. The Mandarin is a coward, he won’t do anything.”

“He’s a terrorist. He’s blown up multiple buildings, you think your house is any different?” Maya refutes.

“We’re staying here, end of discussion.”

“No we’re not! We need to leave. That’s what normal people do when their house is under threat of _terrorists_!” Pepper exclaims.

“We’re not under threat, I threatened _them_! It’s different!”

“We’re going to be attacked! We need to _leave_.”

“We’re perfectly safe here!”

“Guys?” Maya calls, she had drifted away from the arguing couple and was watching the TV, which had an outside view of the house via one of the news cameras outside, “Do we need to worry about that?” She asks, pointing to the missile that could clearly be seen heading for the house. A split second later the missile hit, the blow back sending everyone flying. 

Tony is able to get Mark 42 onto Pepper but Maya hits the wall hard and gets knocked out. Tony fairs a bit better, still conscious, but in a world of pain. Thankfully Pepper’s fine in the suit, she actually protects him from falling rubble. Which allows him a moment of clarity, which he uses to realize, “Sly! She’s in her room!”

“Jarvis says she’s fine.” Pepper says, having access to Jarvis within the suit. Tony nods, getting up as Pepper does the same.

“Get Maya, I’m going to get Sly,” Tony says, moving to go to Sly’s bedroom as Pepper heads over to Maya, right as several more missile hit the house and blow him bakwards. “I’m fine! Go!” Tony yells, climbing over the couch and moving towards where Sly’s room in, but has to stop and back away when the floor collapses.

“Tony!”

“Get Maya and go! Stop stopping, I’ll find a way around and meet up with you outside.” tony says, not entirely sure how he was going to do that. Pepper finally listened, getting Maya, who was coming to and could mostly walk on her own, and getting outside. Or Tony thinks they get outside, the rubble makes it hard to see. Tony paced the divide trying to find either a short distance to jump or a way around it, but he could find one. Not before more missiles hit and the floors he’s on tilts up at 80 degrees and sends him sliding to the windows. He manages to grab onto one of the support beams and keep himself in the house rather than falling down into the ocean below.

_” Sir, Ms. Potts is clear of the structure.” _ With that notification from Jarvis, Tony pulls Mark 42 to him, maneuvering away from the broken window as he gets it on.

Once it’s all onTony asks, “Jarvis, where’s Sly? Is she okay?”

_”Ms. Wilson is still in her room. She is perfectly fine.” _

“Nonononono. In her room is not fine. J the house is going up in flames!” Tony yells, he tries to get flight power, but Jarvis tells him it’s a prototype. The helicopters are still shooting at him but the suit is not combat ready. He can’t get to Sly until he deals with the assholes destroying his house, so Tony shoots a grand piano at one of them and gets to work figuring out how to get rid of the others. 

His plan for taking the second one down backfires, he ends up getting thrown into his own basement, holding onto one of the beams for dear life as he watches his workshop fall apart around him. His bots hurt and falling. “Jarvis! Tell me Sly is out of the house!”

_”Ms. Wilson has not moved from her room._” 

“No! Get her _out_ Jarvis!”

_” I’m sorry sir, but protocol dictates I cannot start contact with Ms Wilson, it would be invading her privacy.”_

“It’s an emergency!”

_”I’m sorry sir, but you said so yourself, privacy should remain privacy even in emergencies.”_

“Jarvis the house is falling down!”

_”I’m sorry sir, but my code dictates,”_ Whatever Jarvis says gets drowned out by Tony screaming as the house actually falls off the cliff and into the ocean, taking Tony with it. And Sly too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I suck at writing fight and explosions and stuff, sorry, but I wanted to add that little bit with the house blowing up and Tony thinking Sly was still inside because Damian gave Jarvis a bug that wouldn't let him see that Damian wasn't in the room. Oh, how awful. Normally i write these in one go and post whatever bs ends up coming out, but this took me multiple days, mainly because I've been studying whenever possible. It is so not enough for the test tomorrow/today. 
> 
> Oh and Damian didn't escape at the tower because too many people were there.
> 
> Also Idk if i explained it well, but the outfit Damian's wearing would be the one Emiko is wearing when she meets Damian in one of the Teen Titan comics, if you look up " DC red arrow Emiko Queen" you'll get her in a red outfit and a black, red and white outfit, Damian's wearing the second. 
> 
> Anyways, as always, kudos and comment if you like, I always enjoy those.


	7. We finish up Iron Man 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian and Emiko have an adventure, and get involved with Extremis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure there are mistakes in this, but honestly I am too tired to care rn. Comment if there are any glaring ones, or ones that bug you.  
In other news, i put up the outtakes! They're not all there, because I have the organization of a three year old and don't put everything where it should go. But most are. Mostly in order.
> 
> Oh, i also said this on Outtakes, but there's a version of Ch7 which is incredibly weird. IMO, like, I got to the length i normally do with these chapters and went 'wait, no, this isn't-' and rewrote the entire chapter to the dumpster fire it is now. So sound off if you want to see the second draft of Ch7, that even sleep-addled me deemed too weird.

“Do you want to take a break?” Emiko asks, currently, she and Damian were hanging in a motel room. News of Stark’s death had just finished playing on the TV. Emiko wasn’t heartless, and she knew Damian wasn’t either, for all his theatrics of being annoyed by everyone and thing, he did care. She could tell he cared about Stark and to have him be killed while Damian was off with her couldn’t have felt good. If she had to guess, he most likely blamed himself. Blamed that he left, that he bugged JARVIS. Probably thinks that Stark might’ve made it out if JARVIS was able to tell him that Damian wasn’t in the house.

“We’re on a mission, I can mourn later. What’s next?” Damian says, methodically sharpening a knife. It was a calming gesture, a repetitive act that helped him remain cool despite losing a friend. 

“Warehouse. Three streets over.” Emiko answers shortly. She’s been following Damian example, or the one he set months ago. Any mission information is on a need to know basis. And Damian doesn’t need to know more than where they’re hitting. She has her reasons, for both why she’s robbing warehouses and for keeping Damian in the dark about what they’re doing.

“When?” Damian, in turn, has only asked simple questions. He doesn’t try to pry into what she’s doing or why she’s doing it, he seems weirdly content to just go with the flow and follow her orders. It was odd considering most of the time he wants all the information. To know what and why they were doing and decide whether it’s worthwhile.

“An hour.” Damian nods and continues sharpening his knives. No more questions were asked.

9999

Damian and Emiko were camped out on a rooftop across from the warehouse she wanted to hit. The guard schedule had changed. So now they had to wait for the gap if there still was a gap. She wanted to hurt as few people as possible. 

But now it was more of a waiting game, so, “Why?” Emiko asks, looking over at Damian whose gaze was glued to the warehouse.

“Why what?” He asks back, still in a voice that’s not his own, not even looking over. It annoyed Emiko, seeing her friend dressed as someone he wasn’t, acting like someone he wasn’t. It was disturbing.

“Why did you agree to be Batgirl? Why agree to pretending to be a girl for no doubt _years_?” It really didn’t make sense to Emiko. She knows he gave her cliff notes before but she still didn’t understand. Yeah, Damian’s grown since he’s been with the Batfamily. She heard what he was like when he arrived, who he is now is incredible growth in four years. But him agreeing to this? Emiko couldn’t understand why.

“Well, at first it was to exploit a loophole in Father’s rule. And then, Father wanted to make it permanent. It was a punishment, no doubt. But, Gordon thought it was a good idea. Or she wanted to piss father off,” Damian shrugged, “Either way, it ended with her training me. And then me debuting as Batgirl in Gotham. And then, the League decided it’d be a good idea for us to have contact with the Avengers. I had already interacted with them, so it was decided I would be that contact. You know, when I started I thought I’d be annoyed within a week of being Batgirl, but I wasn’t. It was fun, freeing. Robin was also a duty first, a responsibility second, fun third. Batgirl, it’s fun first. Despite being the fourth, no one expects me to live up to anyone. I can screw up, and I don’t have to hear about how my brothers could have done it better, they wouldn’t have been a disappointment. I don’t have to feel like I failed everyone. I screw up, Gordon asks me what the fuck happened, and she doesn’t care. We work to better it, or, if it was a mistake. It was a mistake. I never feel like I’m being compared to Brown or Cain, I feel like, even though I’m mimicking Gordon, people judge me on me. Not on how I’m doing compared to the previous iterations.” Damian shrugs again, keeping his eyes forward.

“You also talk more,” Emiko notes. It wasn’t a bad thing. Before, Damian rarely went on rants, especially emotional rants that weren’t thought out. He might make a speech that could go on for hours, but it’d always be thought out, precise. Never on the spot, never from the heart. Not that he never spoke from the heart, he just didn’t do it much.

“Blame Brown. I’ve been hanging out with girls too much. I keep getting invited to girls night. I’m not a girl!”

Emiko holds back a laugh, Damian sounded like he found the whole thing more amusing than annoying. He sounded like he thought it was ridiculous but he wasn’t annoyed at the ridiculousness of it. “God, I wish I haven’t been grounded for so long. And then out of the country. “

“Yeah, oh, uh, the Avengers think I have a crush on you.” 

“What?” Seriously? She thought he was over this. 

“Yeah, it was an oversight on my part. Sorry.” 

“You don’t actually-” She had to make sure, but he cuts her off before the question was finished.

“No. Nooo, that ship sailed.” Oh, thank god. She loved him, but as a friend. It was nice to have someone with similar life experience around. Annoying to have them romantically interested in you. Honestly, it was annoying to have any romance on a team. 

“Ah,” Emiko nods, watching the guards for a moment before asking, “So who do you have a crush on?”

“Why does everyone want to know that?” Damian doesn’t seem annoyed or frustrated, which would be understandable- Emiko would be if people kept asking about her crush, rather he seemed amused. It was weird, Damian was almost a completely different person than who she worked with all those months ago.

“Well, who could possibly be better than me?” Emiko asks, joking,

“No one. Well, Jon maybe, he is a Super. Billy? He has the ability to become an adult at will, meaning we can do so many illegal things. Colin? He can also become an adult, we’ve definitely snuck into R rated movies that way.” Damian says, which fair, she couldn’t get them into R rated movies or shoot lasers out of her eyes. But something else caught her attention…

“You only listed guys,”

“Most of the girls I know are either family or friends I would never consider that way. Or they’re gay.” Damian shrugs, but he also shifts slightly. He’s uncomfortable and wants to move away from the topic, at least that’s what Emiko is getting from him. 

“Ah, want my advice?”

“I’m going to get it regardless, aren’t I?”

“Yup. Go with Billy.” Damian finally pulls his eyes from watching the guards to look at Emiko incredulously. 

“Please explain that logic.” 

“Well, Jon’s what, eleven? Too young. You can’t date him right now. Maybe when you’re older you can give it a shot, but now? Ehhh, people might think you’re weird. Colin? I’ll be honest I have no idea who Colin is beyond the fact that he’s your friend. Billy? Sure he’s immature, but he’s not that much older than you, he’s sweet, he went to _you_ to get this team together. He’s willing to put his ass on the line for the team, which considering your history with them, is pretty fucking brave.” Emiko shrugs, “but that’s just my opinion. Also can you imagine Bats face when you come home with Shazam as your boyfriend?”

“Mmhmm. I don’t want to date anyone E, not now.” Damian shakes his head, turning his attention back to the warehouse, no gaps in security as of yet, “That’s too much stress on top of literally everything else in my life. In _both_ my lives. All of them? I have four lives now.” Damian sounded so done, so tired with what his life had become.

Emiko claps him on the shoulder, “It’s a hell of your own making.” She states, unhelpfully. This had gotten too emotional and shit.

“Yup. And someone else is breaking into the warehouse.” Damian states, which makes Emiko’s gaze snap to the warehouse. And sure enough, some weird glowing people were hitting the warehouse. 

“Let’s get closer,” Emiko says and they both leave the roof, getting closer to the warehouse to get a better look at these people. They seem to be melting things with their hands, or they at least melted the door with their hands, glowing a weird orange colour from within. To Emiko’s knowledge, there weren’t any fire-based bad guys who looked like this, or good guys for that matter. Weird.

“Do we want to try to attack, or?”

“No. We’re going to watch.” And watch they did. They watched the people go into the warehouse and leave with some things. Emiko stands up and heads toward the warehouse, motioning for Damian to follow her. The pair enter the warehouse, Emiko beelines for what she wanted to get, it wasn’t there. “Shit.”

“They took what we were going to?” Damian asks, looking down at the corpses of the workers.

“Yeah. Shit. We need to get it back. They _cannot_ be allowed to have it for long.” Emiko states, walking over to where Damian was crouching.

Damian nods, standing, “They can reach incredibly hot temperatures. I’ve seen injuries like this when one of the Kryptonians heat visions someone’s skin without restraint. How are we going to fight people who can melt a carbon-steel door without _touching_ it? They’ll melt our arrows before they hit.”

“Right side of your quiver. Experimental cryo arrows. Based off of Captain Cold’s Cold Gun, stopping atoms and making them reach absolute zero. They’re technically not experimental, Ollie figured them out a while ago, but he put them out of use because we couldn’t warm the people back up. You shoot someone anywhere with those arrows, they freeze dead.” Emiko admits,” _I_ was trying to figure out how to warm them back to living temperatures. So far, hitting them with a hot arrow, middle of your quiver, will revive them 50% of the time.” 

“Okay, if a third of these arrows can kill people dead, without hitting a vital area, why did we take these quivers?” Which was a fair question. One Emiko would actually answer,

“Oh, once we were done collecting I wanted to run a few more tests at the cabin. But now we need to hunt down some thermal assholes. Come on,” with that, the pair head out, ready to start tracking down the thieves. 

Less than an hour later, they were in town. Damian had removed some of his costume, mainly the elements that made it look like a vigilante costume and not everyday wear. He still was dressed up as Sly, wig and all, and using her voice to talk to people around the town. Emiko was up on the buildings, still dressed in Red Arrow gear, watching from above while Damian mingled. Both were trying to find the thieves, but they didn’t get a good look so they were mainly looking for people who seemed suspicious.

Emiko was eyeing a man who seemed just a tad off when her phone rang. She answers it without looking to see who it was.

“Hey, Emi, uh, we need to talk. It’s about Damian.” Oliver says, clearly upset but tamping it down.

“Sure, what’s up?”

“Uh, no, this-this would be better in person. I’m at the Napa house but you’re not…”

“No, me and Damian are off on a mission.”

There’s a good few seconds before Oliver says anything, and when he does, “What?”

“What what? Damian and I are off on a mission. Uh, I’m not entirely sure what state we’re in currently but it’s the south east of the US.”

“Damian is _with_ you.”

“_Yes_.” Emiko states, turning her attention to Damian who was cheerfully chatting with some locals, “What did you need to say about Damian?” Oliver didn’t respond, and all Emiko heard was a loud thud followed by Dinah’s laughter.

“Damian’s okay and alive isn’t he?” Dinah asks and Emiko realizes something she probably should’ve realized earlier. The news broadcast that told them of Stark’s death? Also said a young woman staying with Stark was killed. Oh fuck.

“He’s fine. Can you tell his family he’s okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Dinah’s laughter could be heard before she hung up. Emiko puts her phone away and watches Damian for a moment longer before going back to scanning the crowd for suspicious people. Particularly the man she had spotted before. But, before she could see him, erratic movement drew her attention back to Damian who was getting dragged down a dark alley by two people. A woman and the man Emiko had noticed before. 

Emiko jumps between rooftops, following Damian as he gets dragged to a back road, away from everyone in town. Secluded. No witnesses. Emiko watches for a moment longer, and when they started taking Damian to a van, she draws one of her arrows, firing it at the woman. It struck true, but she just pulled it out and threw it away, the arrow having seemingly down nothing. Emiko notches another arrow, a cryo arrow this time and fires at the man holding Damian. It struck his arm and soon enough his whole body was frozen, causing him to let go of Damian. The woman grabs Damian, holding him tight with one hand, the other raised up and glowing orange.

“Get down here, or I burn her face off.” The woman demands. Emiko hesitates for a second, debating whether she could hit her before she could touch Damian, and deciding it wasn’t a risk she wanted to take. Emiko gets down from the roof, but kept the cryo arrow notched in her bow.

“Let her go.”

“Why would I do that? The Mandarin would love to have her. First Potts, now Wilson? Stark will suffer.”

“Great, I’m going to be killed for a white mans suffering,” Damian grumbles.

“Who said anything about getting killed? You’ll be made better.”

Emiko could see the moment Damian realizes what she means. Mainly because he shouts, “For fuck’s sake do NOT let her modify me!”

“You’ll be evolved into something better.” The woman’s attention had mainly gone to Damian, she seemed to be giving Emiko only sparing glances. 

“Evolved? Bitch I have been genetically modified to be fucking perfect. I don’t need to be better.”

“You opinions-” whatever she was about to say stops when Emiko’s arrow hits her and she starts to freeze. Damian breaks away from her and goes over to Emiko.

“Thank you for distracting her.”

“You’re welcome. Not what I was doing, but you’re welcome.” Emiko just looks over at her friend, was he seriously just straight up complaining about being modified. Damian shrugs, “I _really_ don’t want to be modified, okay? I have come _so_ close to being so before and I don’t want to. And being out as Slade’s daughter just made that so much more likely.”

Which Emiko could give to him, people _really_ liked modifying Slade’s children. Mainly because there was an incredibly high chance they would survive modifications that could kill other people. Emiko heads to their van, searching it and sighing in relief when she finds what she was looking for. She grabs the small lead box and walks back to Damian.

“Don’t suppose you’ll tell me what we’re taking for LexCorp,” Damian asks as Emiko tucks the box into one of her pouches.

“Nope.” She’d tell him once they were done.

“Right, can we take a detour? They said they had Potts. As in Pepper Potts. I haven’t met her yet but-”

“She’s innocent and she needs help if she’s been taken by a terrorist organization.” Emiko finishes, nodding. “Yeah, any leads to where she is?” Damian holds up a phone, one he most likely got off one of the two frozen people. Emiko takes it and reads the texts Damian had it open to.

** To: Boss  
We found Sly Wilson, she’s alive and well and in our custody. Where do you want us to take her?**

** From: Boss  
The Shipyard. **

The second text was followed by a string of coordinates, which Emiko copied onto her own phone. 

“Let’s go.” Damian nods and the pair rushes off to their hotel to get their bikes and start heading over to the Shipyard.

_-Shipyard-_

“We should wait until nightfall,” Emiko suggests, by the time they had gotten there, it was the evening, a few hours till sunset, “they won’t be able to see us as well, we’ll be able to see them better.”

“Yeah, glowing orange gives away any stealth. I don’t understand though, why would a terrorist make this their base of ops?”

“Maybe it’s not their main base? Who knows, but, we should figure out a plan for when we attack.”

“We start shooting cryo arrows at those mofos until there’s not a single thermal asshole left.”

“No. That’s not a viable strategy, _and_ we need to find Potts. What if she’s in a container and one of those Thermal Assholes drops it into the sea when they see their friends freezing?”

“Fair point. So what do _you_ suggest we do?”

Emiko was silent a moment, what could they do? They have to locate Potts first, but how? The shipyard was giant and there weren’t a lot of places to hide, but there were too many buildings and containers Potts could be in. The only thing that comes to mind is… Emiko smiles at Damian, “Bait.”

Damian groans but doesn’t protest. So that would be there plan. Have Damian- Sly- show up and hope the bad guys take him to Potts. Yeah, nothing could go wrong with that.

_-Later, shortly past sunset-_

Damian walks through the Shipyard, he had taken off most of his costume, given Emiko his bow and quiver, taken off his mask and was walking around in his costume. Thankfully it looked like pretty normal clothes. He also had a couple of cryo arrow heads hidden on him. What was weird was no one was stopping him, or even questioning him. Damian looked around and kept walking, trying to think of where they might be keeping Potts. Eventually, Damian got too annoyed and stopped one of the people walking around.

“Hi, the assholes who kidnapped me and brought me here, left me. So I don’t where to go, or how to get out of here. Can you help me?” Damian asks, using his Sly voice. Clearly him asking shocked the person, which he could understand, what sort of kidnapping victim doesn’t run first chance they get? “They said something about me seeing Pepper again?” Damian adds, hoping to get the person to take him to Potts, and then remembers he hasn’t introduced himself. “Uh, Sly Wilson.”

Which seemed to trigger something in the person because they shout to someone else who comes over and grabs Damian by the arm, dragging him through the shipyard. Damian looks around as he’s dragged, eyes running over Emiko’s hiding place, not wanting to give her away. Damian remains silent as he dragged up some stairs and into a room, there were a bunch of people in it, but there was only one he cared about.

“Pepper!” Damian shouts, trying to move toward where the woman was bound and unconscious, but the man holding him doesn’t release his grip. Instead tightening it.

“You must be Sly,” some blonde blue-eyed man says, walking into Damian’s eye line and leaning down to meet him eye to eye. Damian just glared at the man, “I’m Aldrich Killian, and I have to say I have been very curious about you. I know you’re important to Stark, but I can’t figure out how.”

Damian considers the man for a moment, before answering, “Maybe it’s just too complicated for you. After all, can’t expect everyone to be a genius.”

The man laughs humourlessly, “Well, you certainly sound like him,” Eh, not really. But whatever floats your boat, man. “But really, how are you connected? Because I can’t find anything about you and him on the web.”

“Oh, you know, I think he just picked me up one day and decided to keep me. But, uh, I’m sorry, I thought the Mandarin was holding Pepper. No offence but you don’t really look like the terrorist on tv.”

Killian laughs, not humourlessly this time. “Oh, I am the Mandarin, but he was just an actor. People would be so much more terrified and it’d be so much easier to manipulate everyone if they saw a middle eastern prick be the Mandarin rather than an American.”

“Oh, so you preyed on people’s fear and racism. That’s… unsurprising. Look, can I _please_ talk to Pepper? Please?” Damian begs, he hates it, but necessary at the moment. Killian turns around and some guy behind him nods, grabbing a needle and going over to Pepper. He injects it into her IV med admin port. Damian watches closely, but his view is obstructed when Killian goes over to her, so he instead looks around at the area he’s in. There weren’t as many people in here than when he arrived. Really only the man holding him, Killian, Pepper, the Doctor guy and two other people. 

Killian moves and Damian is able to see Pepper as she’s looking around the room frantically. “Sly?” She calls when their eyes lock.

“Pepper! Hi! I’m okay. I wasn’t in the house. I am so so so so so sorry for sneaking out.”

“You’re okay, that’s all that matters,” Pepper says clearly relieved.

“And, she’ll be better than okay soon enough.” Killian says to Pepper before turning to facce the guy holding onto Damian’s arm, “Why don’t you take Sly to get ready? She should start the preliminary treatments for Extremis.” He turns back to Pepper as Damian is dragged off, “We’ve never had a child test subject before, so, who knows how she’ll turn out.” Damian hears Peper start to say something as he dragged down a staircase. Damian looks around, seeing they’re alone and far enough away, he pulls out one of the cryo heads and stabs it into the man’s side, yanking his arm out of the frozen mans grasp once he was frozen.

Damian runs down the stairs and out one of the doors, hiding behind a container and looking around for Emiko. Who thankfully shows up by his side. 

“Potts is in that building, oh and she was glowing orange,” Damian says, taking his quiver and bow from Emiko and pulling on his mask. 

“Okay. Follow me,” With that, Emiko leads them away from the building and up onto some high stacked containers where they could watch the building from. 

“Why are we up here?” Emiko’s response was to point to the suit of armour flying to the building Potts was in. It wasn’t to attack.

“War Machine was en route. Figured he’d be able to spot us and could get Potts out without our interference. Clearly, he’s working with the Mandarin.”

Which reminded Damian, “Aldrich Killian is the Mandarin. He’s some white guy.” Damian shrugs.

“He’s also the CEO of AIM. It’s a tech company, they wanted to deal with QC but Ollie got a bad feeling and refused.”

“Good for Ollie,” Damian mutters as the shipyard became and even bigger flurry of movement. And some movement in particular caught Damian’s eye, “And I don’t think War Machine is on their side.” Damian says, pointing to where the War Machine armor was being strung up above an oil freighter.

“Oh, great. They’re going to light him on fire.” Emiko remarks.

“Yeah. Poor Rhodes. He’s a nice guy.” Damian says, but more movement catches his eye. “Are you shitting me,” He mutters, then asks, “Hey, do you have binoculars?”

“Uh,” Emiko searches herself and pulls out some small binocular which Damian takes and uses. Which help confirm his theory.

“Rhodes isn’t in the War Machine Armour. He’s down there with Stark.”

“Stark’s alive?” Emiko exclaims quietly.

“Apparently. But that’s not important, who’s in the armour?” 

“Ay,” Emiko sighs, “You find out who’s in the armour. I’ll make sure the old men don’t die.,” Damian nods and the two separate.

_-With Tony and Rhodes-_

“You’re right, we need backup,” Tony states, looking in the distance, waiting for the glow of his armour. 

“Yeah a bunch,” Rhodey agrees, but before Tony could tell him to look at the approaching armour, one of the Extremis people freezes solid, an arrow sticking out of their arm.

“What-” Tony starts as a couple others freeze, arrows protruding form some part of their body, before someone lands behind them. Both Tony and Rhodey shoot around to see a young girl dressed in red and black. She had a black bodysuit on, red shoes, red gloves and a weird red apron thing that Tony was 90% sure was armour, along with a red hood and a red domino mask.

“Mr. Stark and Colonel Rhodes I presume.” She greets.

“Yeah, who the fuck are you.”

“Red Arrow. I’m a friend of Sly’s.”

Tony mouths a silent ‘oh’ while Rhodes says, “Nice to meet you, but we still need more back up. No offense, but the outnumber us. Badly.”

“Are those backup?” Red Arrow asks, pointing to the suits that had arrived.

“Holy shit,” Rhodes says, looking around.

“Merry Christmas.” Tony states, before telling JARVIS, “Target Extremis heat signatures with extreme prejudice.”

“Extremis?” Red Arrow asks.

“The people glowing orange?” Tony says, gesturing to the people around them, including those Red Arrow froze.

“Oh. OH! Uh, Potts has Extremis in her. So, less prejudice.” Red Arrow informs.

“You know where Pepper is?” Tony demands.

“Yeah, last I heard she was in that building,” Red Arrow points to a building above them, “But my main priority is keeping you alive.”

“We’ll be fine. We got the suits now.” Rhodes says.

“Uh, technically _I_ have the suits now. The only one that can lock on and go onto someone other than me is Mark 42 and that was hit by a truck. JARVIS is still working on getting it up again.” Tony explains.

“Well then I guess I have to get my suit back from the president.”

“The president?” Red Arrow asks, clearly confused.

“He’s currently in the Iron Patriot armor.”

“Iron Patriot?” 

“War Machine.” Tony supplies at Red Arrows continued confusion.

“Seriously? Lame.”

“Thank you,” Tony says moving away from the trio to get suited up. “I’m going to get Pepper.” With that, he was off.

“Alright, you’re with me. We’ll go save the president and get my armour back.”

“Uh, lets hold on a second. Sly is getting your armour.”

“Sly? Sly’s alive?”

“Oh, right, everyone thinks she’s dead. Should I have told Stark that?”

Rhodes thinks for a second before shaking his head, “No. Where’s Sly?” 

“Just follow me,” With that, Red Arrow leads Rhodes to where Sly had told her she was.

_-Sly-_

Damian gets onto a platform near where the War Machine armor was strung up. He looks but whoever’s wearing it, while the faceplate is up, is looking forward. Damian’s head snaps to the side when he hears a thump and sees two people, glowing orange, approaching him. Damian quick draws two cryo arrows, making quick work of them before jumping off the platform, grabbing onto one of the cables keeping the war machine armour up.

Damian pulls himself on top of the cable, silently thanking Grayson for his tightrope and acrobatic lessons, and runs down the cable to the armour, dropping off and grabbing it in his hands when it gets too steep, climbing forward with his hands until he gets to the armours hands.

“Who’re you?” The man inside the armour asks when Damian stops.

“I could ask you the same thing Mister. Where’s Colonel Rhodes?” Damian says, deciding to use Barbara’s voice. Might as well just make it his ‘female vigilante’ voice.

The white guy inside the armour furrows his brows at Damian before saying, “Do you not know your president?” Which answers who the hell this guy was.

“I’m 13, why does it matter? Not like my opinion does. “ Damian snarks, “Let’s get you down before they light you up,” Damian says, pulling himself up onto War Machine’s arm.

“Thank you, although you still haven’t told me who you are.” The President says as Damian moves around until he was straddling War Machine’s left shoulder, criss crossing his legs underneath War Machine’s left arm.

“Uh, most of the time I’m Batgirl. But my suit was in New York and I wasn’t, so I borrowed from a friend,” Damian says, notching an arrow and aiming it at the cable keeping the president up.

“Okay, uh, what are you doing?”

“Getting us down,” Damian states before shooting the arrow, holding tightly with his legs, leaning back as the swing and firing an arrow at the other cable holding War Machine. It hits and the pair land on a lower platform.

“You are a crazy kid.” the President remarks. Damian hops off of War Machine and stands next to him instead.

“A crazy kid who just saved your hide.” Damian says and presses his comms,” Red Arrow, I got the War Machine armour. Platform to his lower left.”

“Actually it’s Iron Patriot.” The President corrects.

“Ew.” 

“What, you don’t like it?”

“No. Iron Patriot? What message are you trying to send? ‘Hey, here in America we’re so patriotic that we’ll invade _your_ country with a suit of armour painted like our flag.’” Damian rolls his eyes, “At least War Machine was honest. It was a machine used for war, not propaganda.”

“Huh,”

“Yeah, also you already have a propaganda tool, remember? He did USO shows in tights during World War 2?” A loud thump beside the pair gain their attention, Sly looks over to see Colonel Rhodes, Emiko landing silently on the upper platform. She probably dropped him.

“Hello Mr. President,” Rhodes greets and Damian heads over to Emiko.

“Next move?”

“Stark said he was going to get Potts,” Whatever Emiko was going to say gets cut off by a loud explosion. Damian’s attention snaps to the building currently on fire.

“Was he planning to blow her up?” Damian sighs and turns to Rhodes, “Keep the President safe or whatever,” Before he runs off, shooting an arrow with a line on it up, letting it pull him up to a platform, Emiko close behind him. 

Emiko waits until they both climbed up the platform before speaking, “I’ll get Potts, you make sure Stark’s okay.” Damian nods and Emiko shoots another line Arrow, swinging over to where they last saw Potts. Damian heads over to where he thinks he sees Stark but is stopped a couple of times by some Thermal Assholes who quickly get a taste of absolute zero. 

Damian realizes he should probably feel bad about no doubt killing these people, but at this point, he really doesn’t care. Father can yell at him and ground him all he wants. Damian just wants to save his friends.

_-Emiko-_

Emiko hops down onto the moving platform Potts was stuck on, staying still when it shook a bit too much from her entrance.

“Miss Potts?” Emiko calls, carefully walking over to the woman.

“Who’re are you?”

Emiko debates a moment on what would make the woman feel safer, but ultimately decides on, “I’m Red Arrow, I’m Sly’s friend.”

“Sly! They have Sly, Killian said-”

Emiko cuts her off, “Sly’s safe. She’s going to help Stark.” Potts doesn’t need to worry about Damian. “My priority is you. Can you move?” 

“Not without dislodging this and causing me to fall.”

Emiko nods and looks around, nothing immediately catches her eye as a solution. She sighs and looks down at Potts. “Okay, I have a plan, but I need to know, how good is your core strength?” Potts gives Emiko an incredulous look, “Because if it’s not good, I need to come up with a new plan.”

“I-I don’t know, uh, it’s okay? I don’t know how often I work my core!”

Emiko sighs, okay, new plan. Emiko looks around below them. Coming up with a less good plan. “Okay, new plan, bad plan, but it doesn’t require your core. You’re going to ride this until it stops, and by that I mean hits that stopper and you fall. I’m going to be waiting, and I’ll catch you. I can’t do it while you’re moving, I’m not a Bat. And Sly doesn’t have any Bat gear currently so she’s useless.”

“You have to be a Bat to catch me if I fall while this thing is moving?” Potts asks in disbelief.

“Bats have grappling guns. I have cabled arrows attached to a carabiner on the back of my suit. Not the pinnacle of mobility.” Emiko explains, Potts sighs. “Look, I’m not going to ask you to trust me, but unless you have a good core, its the only option.”

“Fine. Fine, I have no other choice. Please don’t let me die.”

“Not on the agenda, Miss Potts,” With that Emiko shoots a line arrow at the end of the platform, swinging off the moving platform and up onto the stationary one. She gives herself some slack, making sure it was probably more than enough to catch Potts when she fell. 

Then, Emiko waits, counting down in her head until Potts would fall, based on the speed of the platform and where the stopper was. Emiko could feel it when the platform hit the stopper and dove off the platform, keeping herself as aerodynamic as possible until she could grab Pott’s flailing arm, letting the cord bungie once before releasing them from it and fall the last twenty feet. Emiko twists them, making sure she lands correctly to minimize any sort of damage and also to protect Potts. And avoid the fire that apparently got started. Fucking Thermal Assholes. Speaking of, Emiko turns shooting arrows at the Thermal Assholes coming toward them, no doubt to take Ms Potts back. Or kill them.

“How’re you doing that?” Ms Potts asks, looking at the frozen Thermal Assholes.

“Cryo arrows. They make whatever they touch reach absolute zero. No atom movement. No warming up from it.” Emiko explains.

“Oh, good. Good. Where’s Sly?”

“She’s up there. Helping Stark.”Emiko says, pointing up at the platforms above them. Something within the fire explodes, causing both women to flinch. “Let’s get away from here,” Emiko says, grabbing Potts’s arm and dragging her off of the ship and away from the fire.

_-Sly-_

Damian was getting really tired of these Thermal Assholes. Everywhere he turns, more Thermal Assholes. What’s worse, they were learning to avoid his arrows. Which meant he was running out. Damian shot his last cryo arrow into some Thermal Asshole and then went to retrieve his previous ones from other Thermal Assholes frozen bodies while being chased by Thermal Assholes. He ran around the platform, grabbing and shooting cryo arrows. By the time he was finished, Damian was so tired, he stomped around the platform, grabbing all of his arrows and putting them back in his quiver.

As he’s doing this he hears fighting, and when he looks up he sees Stark fighting Killian.With Killian winning. Oh fuck no. Damian notches his freeze arrow and jumps toward the fight at the same time Killian lands on Stark’s ironman suit. Firing the arrow, it hits the man right before he could hit Stark’s chest, immediately stopping all movement. Damian lands and walks over to Killian, furrowing his brows when he noticed that the ironman suit was empty. And missing it’s lower half.

The sound of an Iron man suit approaching garners Damian’s attention, he looks toward where the Iron man suit rises up beside the platform. “Uh, why isn’t he moving?” Stark asks through the speakers.

“How did you get out from under him and into that?” Damian asks, using Sly’s voice. The Ironman suit goes unnaturally still and then it gently floats down onto the platform. Stark exits out of the silver iron man suit, looking at Damian like he’d seen a ghost. “Are you not going to say anything?” Damian asks and is then immediately engulfed in a hug. “Okay?” Damian says, patting Stark’s back with the hand not holding a bow.

“You were in the house. You died. You fell, I-I couldn’t-”

“Ohhh,” Damian forgot about that, “No. I wasn’t in the house. I-I snuck out and visited a friend. Red Arrow.” Damian says and the hug is immediately broken. Stark pushes himself arms length away, keeping a firm grip on Damian’s shoulders.

“You snuck _out_?”

“Yeah. And I might’ve bugged JARVIS so he’d think I was at the Malibu house. While I was actually in Napa, and then travelling cross country with Red Arrow. “

“_You bugged JARVIS_?!” Stark exclaims, “You’re grounded.”

“What? You can’t-”

“Grounded. You are hella grounded.”

“I save your ass and I’m grounded? If I hadn’t snuck out, I probably would’ve been killed _because you gave your address out to a terrorist!_” Damian scoffs, “Why do I bother? You’re an adult, you only care if I follow your stupid rules!” Damian exclaims, stomping over to Killian and ripping the arrow out of his chest.

Stark audibly sighs, “Look, I’m sorry I imposed such strict rules. I only wanted to keep you safe.”

Damian puts the arrow back into his quiver, “I know, but you have to trust I can keep myself safe. I’ve been doing so long before I met you, I’ll be okay without you hovering.”

“Okay. Now, what did you do to him?”

“Uh, I made his body reach absolute zero. Green Arrow developed cryo arrows a while ago, they make whatever the touch reach absolute zero, stopping all atom movement.” Damian shrugs.

“Huh. I would really like to study those arrows,”

“Ask Red Arrow. They’re not mine to give out. Speaking of, we should probably meet up with her, she’s on the ground.” Stark nods, getting back into the ironman suit. He picks Damian up and takes him to where he directs him to. They land, but there’s no one around. 

“Uh, where are they?” Stark asks as Damian steps away from him. 

Damian gets a couple of steps, looking around before he turns on his heels, looking behind Stark to see a bit of red poking out from behind a shipping container. Damian walks over, seeing that it’s just a scrap cloth pinned under the shipping container, he looks up at vantage points and spots Emiko there. Crouched by Pepper who was just sitting normally. Emiko lowers her drawn bow as Pepper waves. Damian watches as Emiko wraps an arm around Pepper’s waist and jumps off the vantage point, getting lowered slowly by one of the line arrows stuck onto their former vantage point. Emiko drops Pepper when they’re a few feet off the ground before releasing herself from the line arrow.

“Pep?” Stark says, sounding like he couldn’t believe he was seeing her. He pops out of the armour, taking a hesitant step toward Pepper before rushing toward her and engulfing her in a hug. 

Damian walks over to Emiko, “Good job getting Pepper,”

“Good job getting Stark.” Emiko says, turning her attention from where Pepper and Tony were hugging to look at Damian, “Now that this detour is over, can we get back to our original mission?” 

Before Damian could respond, Stark buts in. “Excuse me, ‘original mission’? Sly’s not going anywhere.” He says, walking over with Pepper following closely.

“That’s not your call old man.” Emiko states.

“Excuse me?”

“Red’s right. It’s not Mr. Stark. I’ve been polite, but you’re not my dad-”

“No, you’re dad is off in Australia not giving two shits about you.” Wait, seriously? Stark kept an eye on Slade? A bad eye, because last Damian heard Slade was in Russian assassinating some politician, but still. 

“Not the point. You’re not responsible for me Mr Stark. I’m not your kid, I’m not an Avenger. I’m a Gotham Vigilante, I’m a Bat. And that makes me Batman’s responsibility, it makes me Gotham’s responsibility and Gotham mine. I can choose where I go, who I go with and what I do.”

“You’re thirteen. You need an adult to look after you.”

“I have one. I have multiple. Too many, seriously. I’ll be fine Mr. Stark. I’ve been staying with you to be kind, to let you get your clinginess out and because I get how awful it can be, your first experience with someone faking their death, but it’s been too long. I need to go back home. Be with my family. Go, go to girls’ night. Have a disastrous time with the Sirens.”

“But-”

“You’ll still see me Mr. Stark. I’ll be around. I’ll come by the tower once a month, probably. And if I can’t, I’ll call. I have to live my life, and I can’t do that from inside a gilded cage. I’ll be in touch.” With that, Damian and Emiko run off.

_-Queen Cabin-_

“So, any other places we need to hit?” Damian asks, stretching on the couch, he had removed his wig and mask when they came in.

“Nope, those were the only warehouses we needed to hit.”

“Okay, so are you going to tell me now why we were stealing Kryptonite from Lex Luthor?” The shocked look on Emiko’s face felt insulting, “What else would he keep in lead boxes?” It was obvious to Damian. Was it not supposed to be?

Emiko sighs, shaking her head, “Well, I _wanted_ to show you how infuriating it could be to have a leader who dishes out mission info on a need to know basis, well all information really, but clearly that failed.”

Damian sits up straight, raising an eyebrow at Emiko, “I was raised with that environment. I thought you were too. Do as your told, ask no questions. You’re a follower, you only need to know what the leader deems necessary for you to know.” Damian shrugs, “I always thought it safest, thought it was best. If one of us is captured, then whoever captured them won’t get the whole plan. And too much information can be confusing.”

“Yeah, and you know, some people might get pissed at a secret prison.” Emiko snarks.

So she was still mad about that. “Yeah. When I lead our Teen Titans, I thought it was best to keep that to myself. I figured you guys would either hate it, or it would try your morals too much. Not knowing was easier. But it’s not like I’ll be leader of Billy’s team.”

Emiko’s eyes narrow, “What makes you say that?”

“It’s Shazam’s team.”

“They’re _your_ friends. All of us. We’re you’re friends Damian. Do you honestly think we’d default to him before _you_?”

“I thought you were still mad. And to be honest, I haven’t talked to Colin or Maya since before my death. I just, I don’t know, I never know what to say. I don’t know what they were told, Father is incredibly unhelpful in that department, but I don’t know. I guess I’m scared.”

“You’re scared?” Emiko asks, her tone incredulous. Probably at the fact that Damian just admitted he was scared, he didn’t do that much.

“Yeah. I’m scared because I don’t know how’ll they react, if they even care. I was scared earlier, i saw Killian about to kill Tony, and I was terrified. I shot him, but the second it took that arrow to get to him felt like an eternity, it felt like I wouldn’t make it and I would lose a father figure. It’s one thing to _hear_ about their deaths, it’s another to bear witness to it.”

“Oh. Speaking of fathers, has your family called you?” Emiko asks, which was a weird subject change. But Damian pulls out his phone and turns it on, waiting a while because he had turned it off-off. “Wait, your phone was off-off, not notifications?” Emiko asks.

“Yeah? You told me to turn it off.”

“Fuck.” When Damian’s phone turned on and all his notifications came through, he had to agree with Emiko’s sentiment.

“I’m grounded.”

“Yeah.”

“Did they max out my voicemails?” Emiko’s laughter did not help the situation. “Fuck it, I’m not listening to all of them,” Damian states, emptying his voicemail box without listening to a single one. Instead going to his texts.

“So, you grounded?”

“No, there’s a few panicked texts, but most of them seemed to realize I had my phone completely off thanks to Oracle. Who was apparently tracking me through the phone.”

“Huh, I’m just glad we didn’t get any unwanted backup.”

“Yeah, Billy is incredibly concerned though,” Damian says, texting the boy to tell him he’s alive and fine.

“Makes sense. Tell him I’m in. For his team.”

“You sure?”

“Nope, but tell him anyway.”

“Okay, should I also tell him that the team’s hideout will have to have the E! Network to get your Kardashian fill in?”

“If you want to die.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, if any character is ever OOC, please tell me. I know some of the characters I write, but not nearly enough to actually be writing them this much, so please tell me if they're too out of character. 
> 
> Also i have no idea if Emiko has a thing about Killing, I presume not? Also, Damian doesn't because I implied in ch2 that he killed someone/almsot killed someone to protect Bruce, so, yeah.
> 
> Comments and Kudos are always appreciated.


	8. Stuff happens, not sure what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is kind of a cop-out but since I'm not Jewish, I didn't feel comfortable writing about Jewish customs and Hannukah so, I didn't. I know I could of researched it, but with stuff like this I prefer talking to people about it and idk anyone who's Jewish (everyone around me is either Catholic/Christian or Athiest) so I felt it safer to not write about it.
> 
> Sorry, there's also a note in story.
> 
> This Chapter is kind of all over the place. So sorry about that.
> 
> As always, not Beta-read, I literally finished it five minutes ago. So comment any glaring errors or errors that bug you.
> 
> Happy reading!

“Hey.” Stark was still staring at him. At Sly.

Which wasn’t surprising, Damian did break into his apartment and cook breakfast. Damian was honestly surprised Stark didn’t wake up earlier with how much noise he was making.

“I thought you were leaving.” Stark states, standing in the entrance to the Kitchen, Potts was nowhere in sight. Maybe she was still asleep.

“I did. I went home, to Gotham. Turns out I missed some Hannukah celebrations,” Damian shrugs, it wasn’t a big deal to him. But he did know his grandparents wanted him there.

“So why are you here?” Damian looked down at the food on the counter, “Making me breakfast.” Stark adds, eyeing the food with confusion.

“I wanted to apologize.”

“Apologize?”

“I was a bit crass last we saw each other,” couple of days ago, “I forgot not everyone deals with trauma like my family does. And you were holding on so tight because you were scared. You’ve lost people before and were scared of losing more people. And first off, that’s not good, you might want to get therapy, but I should of taken that into account. I’m not going to live with you again, I miss my home. But I will be around more. Probably on the weekends. I’ve missed quite a bit of school and my teachers are not pleased. I haven’t fallen behind, but that doesn’t mean I can just, not show up.”

“Yeah, I-I probably should’ve considered school before locking you in the tower. Although you apparently could’ve escaped at any time.”

Damian shrugs, “Eh, there were a lot of people at the Tower. Also, I didn’t mean to escape and stay gone. I actually meant to come back to the house, hopefully without you ever knowing I was gone. I just, I needed some fresh air and to see my friends.”

“Right, teenagers don’t typically like hanging around old men.” Stark mutters.

Damian flashed a smile with no heart behind it, “I’m also sorry about sneaking out. It was just supposed to be a day trip and hanging with friends, I didn’t realize you’d give your address out to a terrorist and then think I’d died. Again. That was kind of a shitty thing. Especially considering everything and that I literally faked my death a while back.”

“Yeah, I went into the water thinking I had gotten you killed. Serves me right for trying to control you,”

“No. You should never think you’re responsible for someones death unless you are. We both made mistakes, but at least we both came out it relatively uninjured.”

“Pepper’s in the hospital, I’m synthesizing a serum to reverse or control the effects of Extremis.”

“I said relatively. Uh, anyways I have to go back home soon, celebrating with the fam and whatnot. But, considering everything that’s happened, if I have to fake my death again, and I get a choice in it, I’ll contact you about it so long as you promise to do your mourning in your house or tower or whatever. Away from cameras and media. No offense but I don’t trust your acting skills.”

“I am a great actor. But, I’ll concede to locking myself in my place _if_ you fake your death again.” Stark seemed a little happy at Damian’s change from ‘when’ to ‘if’. 

Damian nods, “I’ll visit after the holidays. I put my number on the fridge, text me when you’re chill with me visiting. Don’t give it to anyone else!” With that, Damian left the apartment via the fire escape.

_-SometimelaterbecauseI’mnotJewishanddonotwanttoscrewupanyHannukahcustomssorry-_

“It’s weird to have such a full house for the holidays.”Richard remarks as he and Damian walk around Bludhaven, heading to some Cafe Richard swears in amazing. Damian was just happy to be out in public as Damian Wayne and not Sly Wilson. Although he has to go visit the Wilsons soon. Apparently Stark believes that none of his ‘blood’ family actually care about him.

Rose was incredibly unhappy about her job getting interrupted.

So Damian was going to head to Slade’s and stay with him for a few weeks. Make a show of being a happy family that gives space when asked.

“Grandmother and Grandfather seemed very eager to have us celebrate, father was happy,” Damian notes as they cross the street.

“Yeah. I’m actually really happy they’re here. Bruce seems… lighter.” Richard says with a small smile.

“Yes. It will be quite terrible if either of them turns out to be a murderous bastard.”

“Damian!” Richard’s tone was scolding.

“What? Given our past experiences, it’s not an unlikely possibility.”

Richard sighs, “Yeah, I guess. I really hope they’re just normal people.”

Damian snorts, “No Wayne is normal. I wouldn’t be surprised if Grandmother was an assassin or spy. She certainly has enough skill and knowhow. Or have you not realized they move as quietly as Father, react too fast to things and scan a room like we do?”

“I realized. But to be fair they lived through the First World War.” Ageing had never worked properly in Gotham. Sometimes people would remain a certain age for decades, never really growing mentally, and sometimes people would age half a decade in a week and have memories of things that they could not of done, other times people could be deaged years or decades.

It was weird. Thankfully Damian had only had to deal with the former, never the latter. So far at least.“Yes, and you and father were active during the second. Surprised you never ran into the Captain.” 

“Who says we didn’t? I’d have to dig, but I have a picture of him.” Richard turns to a small hole-in-the-wall cafe and holds the door open for Damian as he speaks, “I’m on his shoulders grinning like a mad child. Bruce took the picture.” Richard follows Damian in and orders for both of them. Damian let him, trusting his brother. 

“How quaint. I’m surprised the Captain has not commented on it then.” Damian remarks after Richard is finished ordering and the pair sit down.

“He probably doesn’t realize they’re the same person. Not like Gotham’s weird ageing is really talked about outside of Gotham.”

“All the superhero cities have weird ageing. I wouldn’t be surprised if New York suddenly got affected.”

“Barry actually did a study on the ageing thing a while back. Like years ago. Best explanation he had was that there are certain areas on the Earth where there are slight temporal disturbances, which can lead in delayed ageing, time seemingly not passing but doing so at the same time. Like we could have 11 winters but you only age a year. He says it’s likely that superheroes gravitate to these places for one reason or another, hence why all of our cities have weird ageing. So, New York wouldn’t magically get affected. It’s more of, we all have weird ageing because temporal disturbance zones attract weird people. Except he couldn’t actually prove that. So, who knows.” Richard shrugs.

“*tt*, it is quite annoying to have to update your information every so often.” If anyone was to leave Gotham, or one of its sister cities with the weird ageing, they needed paperwork that would put them at the same physical age they were currently. Richard could not go around with a license saying he was born in 1930, while looking like he hadn’t even _hit_ thirty. He required one that matched his physical age. 

“Yeah, but it’s nice Gotham got its records straight. Having a ‘real’ one and then the physical age you represent. Also nice that WE developed that blood tester. So much less guesswork than when I was a kid. I used to panic when my birthday came around and I looked identical to I had the previous year. Then when I started ageing I panicked _more_. That little blood tester is so nice.”

“Yes. It’s nice being told I’m physically thirteen.”

“Hey, at least you’re not twenty being told your fifteen. God that was an awkward five years.” Richard smiles and thanks their server when she puts their drinks and food on the table.

“Pastries Richard?” Damian raises an eyebrow after the lady had left.

“They’re good. Eat.” Richard encourages.

Damian picks at the pastry in front of him for a minute before speaking, “I’m heading to Slade’s next Friday. I’ve gotten most of my work done, but I’ll be missing some exams my teachers need me to take in school. Hence, delaying my departure.”

“Slade’s not a bad guy.” Damian raised his eyebrows at Richard’s comment.

“How many times has he tried to kill you?”

“...He’s never succeeded. Besides, I’m sure you and him will get along great. And hopefully not stab each other. I mean, you spent like a week with him during that DNA test thing. You managed to get along then.”

“*Tt*, I’m not worried about us getting along. I’m worried about lines blurring. We all knew that test was fake-”

“Slade knew that test was fake, you were on the fence.” Richard reminds, which wasn’t incorrect. Although Damian was more in denial of him being related to Wilson. 

“-and yet when I worked with him there were times where he seemed to forget I wasn’t _his_ kid.” Damian moves to a different Pastry. Richard was right, they were good. He sipped at the hot chocolate Richard had ordered him, it wasn’t awful. But it had nothing on Pennyworth’s hot cocoa.

“Well, you technically are now. Unless we want to change your story again but I think the current one is pretty nice.”

“Mm, I’m being recognized on the streets. Thankfully enough people like me that there aren’t any witchhunts, but, Sionis talking to me on the streets is weirder than anything else.”

“Was he in-”

“Can he get out of it?”

“Fair. What did he want?”

“Todd. Or something about him. I don’t know, he just talked to me about his past relationship with Todd, nothing bad, just grossly domestic stuff, and I still have no idea _why_ he decided to talk to me of all people. Now that I think about it, he might’ve just wanted to complain.”

“And he went to _you_?”

“Mmhm. I mean, he also patted me on the back, told me I was a good kid and if the vigilante thing didn’t work out he’d have a job for me. So I honestly don’t know what to make of that conversation.”

“Well. At least you’re not getting attacked in broad daylight?”

“*Tt*. The apartment Gordon got for me is also in Sionis’s territory so, I suppose he would’ve been talking to me eventually.”

“Why Black Mask territory?” Richard asks, leaning forward, elbows on the table.

“Mm, if _they_ ever found it, she didn’t want it in Hood’s territory, too much scrutiny and such. Didn’t want to bother him. Sionis has chilled since his men nearly murdered Brown. And Todd has enough of a relationship with him that it’s relatively safe. Safer than anywhere else that’s not central. I’m supposed to be living on my own Richard, if I lived in central Gotham, people would notice I lack guardians. In gang territories… people don’t care. Still weird for him to start talking to me on the streets.”

“I bet. It’s weird enough to talk to people you have no reason knowing. Like everytime Tim or Steph visit Central, they greet Barry if they see him. Leading to so many questions on why and how they know each other. Criminals, god Harley’s weird enough, but she’s an old classmate of Bruce, no reason for any of the others to talk to us.”

“*Tt* they only don’t talk to us because they don’t know.” Damian doesn’t say anymore, raising an eyebrow at the three people who had just entered the Cafe. Richard notices his look and turns to face them, which seems to have been a bad idea as Romanoff notices and starts whispering to Stark, signing to Barton. Richard turns back to face Damian.

“Wonder what they’re doing here.”

Damian rolls his eyes and moves, changing seats to sit beside Richard, rather than allowing them to box both of them in. Damian is pulling his hot chocolate and pastries over to him when the Avengers approach.

“Hi, mind if we sit with you?” Romanoff asks with what’s probably supposed to be a disarming smile. It wasn’t.

“There are a lot of other tables open,” Richard notes, “Did you want to talk about something?”

“Yep, you mind?” Stark answers, an eyebrow raised.

“Of course not,” Richard says with a smile, gesturing for the three to sit on the recently vacated bench across from Richard and Damian. The three adults sit down, easily fitting in the booth.

Stark was looking at Damian, not Richard, seemingly puzzled, “Have we met?”

“Yes. You invaded my friend’s apartment while I was present. We were never formally introduced, however. I am Damian Wayne. Now what did you want to talk about? I was having a nice outing with my brother.”

“Wayne like Bruce Wayne?”

“Yes. He is my father. What. Do. You. Want.” Damian did not want to deal with them as himself. Too risky.

Stark taps on his phone and shows it to the pair. It took Damian a minute to understand what they’re looking at. 

Richard’s original birth certificate.

The one from 1930. 

Richard reacts quicker than Damian, “Looks like a birth certificate from 1930 for a Richard John Grayson. Funnily enough, I share a name with him. Why are you showing us this?”

“You don’t just _share_ a name with him. You _are_ him.” Stark states.

Richard chuckles, “Do I look like I’m 80? I mean, I take good care of my skin, but I don’t think I have _that_ good of a skincare routine.”

“No. You look like you’re thirty. But you’ve also looked this way for many years.” Romanoff says and pulls out a few photographs, all of Grayson as an adult. Throughout the second half of the 20th century. 

“Or there’s someone who looks a lot like me?”

Romanoff pulls out a piece of paper, it’s a photocopy of the newspaper declaring ‘Bruce Wayne adopts Richard ‘Dick’ Grayson as ward!’

“With the same nickname, Dick?”

“It was very common in the forties.” Was Richards only remark.

It was kind of bugging Damian that Richard seemed to be trying to talk them out of coming to a conclusion they’ve clearly already come to. 

Why did it matter if they knew about the ageing thing?

He and Richard were talking about it quite openly before they came along.

“Mm, you’re not doing much to defend yourself.”

“I don’t really have anything to defend against. You haven’t really told me what I should be defensive about.”

“You’re enhanced.”

What.

Damian manages to cover his laugh with a cough.

That was insane.

“I’m _really_ not. I’m as human as anyone else.” Richard states.

“You were born in 1930. You haven’t aged in decades.”

“Yeah because we live in Gotham. If you investigated other Gothamites you’d find the same thing. Commissioner Gordon has been Commissioner for- since I was 10.” Richard seemed to not want to do the math on how long Gordon had been in power.

“Excuse me?”

“We suspect Gotham, along with a few other cities are zones of minor temporal disturbances which exhibit themselves as ageing problems. There was a study done a while back, I can see if I can get you a copy. But, with Gotham, Metropolis, Central City, Star City, those cities with heroes you didn’t know about? Most have this peculiar ageing thing going on. Where people don’t age for decades and then suddenly they’ve aged five years in one month with memories of things that they did not do.” Richard shrugs, “You get used to it after a while and most cities have a certain filing system down. You’re real age and then your physical one. I can’t go around with a drivers license saying I was born in 1930, so I get one that’s updated to how I currently look.” Richard pulls out his current driver’s license, showing it to the three Avengers, “This one says I was born in 1983, I’ll have to get it updated in a few years. We also don’t mentally go beyond our physical age. Damian is physically 13, he could’ve been born twenty years ago, but he’s mentally a thirteen year old.” Richard shrugs, “It’s not really a big deal. It’s just life here and you deal with it. I personally don’t mind staying youthful,” Richard finishes with a smile.

“If you can stay youthful here, why don’t more people live in these Temporal Disturbance zones?” Barton asks.

“Temporal disturbances also means you can be wiped from existence at any given moment, you might die and come back, watch a dear friend die and a week later they’re back and perfectly fine. They might have a disturbingly clear memory of their death or they might have no idea it ever happened. You might be best friends with someone one day and then tomorrow they’re trying to kill you because they now have memories of you being their enemy. Not fun.”

“If people die and come back, how can you be sure someone is truly dead? Like, Batgirl faked her death a while back, but people mourned her.” Stark reminds.

“Mm, that’s complicated. If someone dies _within_ a Temporal Disturbance Zone, then depending on factors we don’t know, they might come back. If someone dies _outside_ a Temporal Disturbance Zone and is then buried _in_ one, there’s a next to zero chance they’ll come back. I only know of one case of that. And it wasn’t a normal revival either. But every death is treated as if it’s final. Although some people have taken to waiting anywhere from a week to a month before actually mourning as most revivals cap out at a month. If your friend isn’t back four weeks after they’ve died? 99% chance they’re never coming back.” Richard shrugs.

“Is that why there were some non-reactions to Batgirls death? Like with Batman?” Stark asks.

“Unlikely, due to the Bats being, uh, them, there’s always at least one of them denying someone is dead. They probably thought it was a fake death. To my knowledge, as a cop and a Gothamite, if the Bats believe someone is dead, they mourn them and move on.”

“Or if you’re Batman, you start branding people.” Damian snarks. That _still_ bugged him. Father would yell at him for gratuitous violence and ignore the fact that _he fucking branded people_.

“Or that.” Richard shrugs, “Can we get back to our outing? We were having a nice time.”

“Of course. Thank you for being kind enough to field our questions.” Romanoff says and more or less pulls the other two out of the booth and away.

“Well, I’m no longer in the mood for this. Can we go somewhere else?”

“Yeah, I found this new arcade. They have some awesome games, including Cheese Viking.”

“There’s another Cheese Viking cabinet? What are we still doing here?” Damian gets up, pulling Richard with him and out the door. Richard waves goodbye to the employees and then steers Damian toward the arcade. 

_--_

“Why didn’t you just tell them about the ageing stuff right off the bat?” Damian asks, the two had retired to Richard’s Bludhaven apartment after having a fun time at the arcade. They would be heading back to Gotham soon but Richard wanted to pick up a couple of things. Or drop some things off. Damian couldn’t remember.

“What?”

“Rather than running around them and letting them come to that false conclusion. Why not simply tell them about Gotham’s ageing problem?”

Richard hums and sits down next to Damian, “It’s just, an unspoken rule of sorts. You don’t talk about the weirdness of Gotham with outsiders unless absolutely necessary.”

Damian nods, weird, but, “I suppose that makes sense. Are there any other unspoken rules I should know about?”

“You know, speaking them kind of denotes the fact that they’re unspoken,” Richard comments but he does start explaining some of the rules Damian had never heard but the community apparently had. Some Damian already knew but didn’t realize that they were _rules_.

Which makes sense as they _are_ unspoken rules. Things you do that you don’t realize have been set for a while.

_--_

Damian was sitting on one of the Manor’s couches, back against one of its armrests, legs splayed out on the cushions. Titus, Ace and James the dog laying on the couch with him, all in some way laying _on_ him. Damian was absent mindedly drawing as he considered the upcoming week. He had a few tests to do, but otherwise school was irrelevant. He’d have to stop by his Sly apartment, make sure there wasn’t any perishables and the fridge was empty. And request they shut off his power and water for the next few weeks, no reason to let those bills ramp up.

God he was thirteen and thinking about bills.

“Whatcha drawing?” James the human asks, leaning on the couch’s arm and looking over Damian’s shoulder at his sketchpad. Damian was pretty sure James was crouching down since he wasn’t looming over Damian, rather his head was right next to Damian’s.

“Nothing in particular,” Damian answers truthfully as he looks at his sketchpad, it was simply detailing what was happening on the couch. I.e. the dogs on his legs.

“So, you never did explain why you named a former attack dog after me.” Huh, it didn’t occur to Damian, but James was right. Barnes was sent to the Kent farm before James the Dog had been retrieved and then by the time he’d come back Damian was locked in the Tower. And it wasn’t really talked about over the holidays.

“Well, he’s not quite former. He still has some ways to go, but, I named him James because it’s hope. You’re growing, you’re healing, and that’s what I want for James the dog. For him to grow past his past as nothing but a mindless killing machine. As you are.” Damian explains, scratching James the dog behind the ears.

James the human doesn’t say anything for a bit, before gently knocking Damian’s head with his own, “...You’re a sappy kid.”

“Rose said so as well. Do you like James?”

“He’s a good dog. He finds me whenever I’m having a bad day and helps when he can. I think Alfred’s training him to be a therapy dog.”

Damian snorts, “I wouldn’t be surprised. But he might also just do that. Animals are often intuned to their owners. Alfred the cat always disturbs me when I’m in a bad mood and does his best to cheer me up.”

“Mm, Harley thinks it’d be a good idea to talk to Steve.”

“Well, you’re both soldiers out of time, grew up together in the same time.”

“You say that like your dad wasn’t there during WWII.”

“It’s not the same. You can reminisce with father all you like but it’d be nothing compared to seeing your friend again.”

“I guess.” James the human didn’t seem to happy with that idea.

“Quinn won’t force you to do something you don’t want to do. If you don’t want to talk to Steve, don’t. Don’t tell him you’re still alive. Make a life for yourself elsewhere and raise goats. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“I know. It’s just, Harley thinks it’d be a good idea s’all. Part of me agrees with her, but part of me is scared.”

“Did you talk to Quinn about this?”

“Yeah, but, I don’t know. You know Stevie now, what’s he like?”

Oh. “You’re worried you’ve both changed that you’re unrecognizable to the yous in your memory.”

“I’m not Bucky Barnes anymore. I never will be again.”

“And that’s okay. I’m sure Rogers isn’t the same person he was last you met him.”

“I guess.”

“Do you want _me_ to tell him you’re alive and whatnot?”

“...No.” James answers hesitantly, “But if you could feel him out on how he’d react if I showed up that’d be great.” James suggests with some trepidation.

“I’ll try next time I see him.” Damian states.

“Thank you. Now, we missed some training.” Damian groans as Barnes picks him up and carries him down to the cave, but doesn’t actually do anything to stop Barnes from doing so. Training with Barnes wasn’t horrible.

It was actually rather fun. Not that Damian would admit that.

_--_

Damian got to bed around 2 am, he’d have to be up at 7 to get dressed and go to school to do his exams, but he was content with that. Barnes had decided 4 am training would continue tomorrow, the amount of training he had done tonight allowed a break from 4 am training.

With this promise of _not_ being awoken at 4 am, one could forgive Damian from being wholely unprepared for Barnes to barge into his room, opening his door so hard it slams into the wall. After swearing up a storm in Arabic, Damian looked at Barnes, who looked frenzied, he had a tablet in his flesh hand, the doorknob to his door in his metal one.

“What’s wrong?” Because something was very clearly wrong.

Barnes held up the tablet, showing Damian what was on it. It was Stark, from a couple of years ago if Damian wasn’t mistaken. “He’s dead.”

What.

“I-what?” That’s not possible, he saw Stark a couple of days ago. Well, death can happen fast but-

“I killed him.”

And now there is something else terribly wrong with this whole thing. “Barnes, what are you talking about?” There is no way Barnes went and killed Stark. Not in the past couple of days.

“Howard Stark. HYDRA had me kill him.”

Oh. Thank god Barnes did not-

Wait.

_Oh shit._

“Well, first off, that’s _Tony_ Stark, Howard’s son. And second off, _what do you mean you killed Howard Stark_? Howard Stark was killed in a drunk driving accident.”

“No, no. I-I beat his face in. _I_ killed him.”

Well thats- that’s not really something Damian wants to deal with at 4 am on two hours of sleep. Mostly because if he starts dealing with it, that means he’ll have to tell Stark. And that’s not something he needs right now.

But then Barnes just _had_ to add;

“There’s a video. I remember, a camera recorded everything.”

Because _that’s_ a problem. _That_ is something that can become very dangeorus. _Especially_ if HYDRA has it.

For fucks sake.

“Okay. I have exams all day today. My first exam starts at nine. So, we have at most 4 hours and forty five minutes to find this video. Wonderful. Where would it be?” Damian asks, getting up and getting dressed.

“Siberia.”

Oh for fucks sake.

Damian stops getting dressed. “We have to go to Siberia, find the video and get back in under five hours.” He mutters to himself, then sighs, and texts the other supersoldiers to be ready in five, they were going to Siberia.”Let’s get the plane.”

With that, Damian leaves his room, half dressed, Barnes trailing after him. When they get down to the mostly deserted cave- Drake was sleeping in the chair at the Batcomputer- Damian grabbed keys to one of the Batplanes and tossed them to Barnes.

“Get the take off procedures going, I’m going to finish getting dressed.” Barnes nods and heads off to the Batplane they’re taking.

Damian pulls on his Batgirl suit, Siberia is fucking cold and it’s the only suit he has with a thermal layer right now. Damian snaps on the mouth cover and heads to the Batplane, which was prepped and primed for take off.

Barnes takes one look at him, and then at his own clothes- which were a fuzzy sweater and thick pants- and asks, “Should I be dressed up too?”

“No, Siberia’s just cold, there are some winter gear in the back of the plane if you feel your current atire is unsuitable for Siberia.” Damian states and takes off, landing shortly on the building the other Super Soldiers were living in.

“We’re bringing them?” James wasn’t _that_ comfortable around them, which was understandable. But they had less than five hours and Damian wants this to be over as quickly as possible.

“Yup.” Damian lowers the boarding ramp and the Five supersoldiers board.

“Cute sweater,” Sascha remarks as they all sit down. Damian was 90% sure she was being genuine but, almost everything came out sounding sarcastic from all of them.

“It is adorable.” Damian remarks, making sure James knew _he_ was being sincere, so Sascha’s smile also seemed sincere. Damian takes off again and sets their course for Siberia.

“So, do you know where is Siberia this tape might be?”

“Tape?” Sascha asks.

“The recording of James killing Howard and Maria Stark.”

“Oh, that wouldn’t be in Siberia,” Sascha says, getting out of her seat and typing in a different set of coordinates.

“I was briefed in Siberia,” James says, clearly confused.

“Yeah, and any records and mission reports would’ve been taken elsewhere.” Sascha finishes typing in their new destination and sits back down.

James seemed more confused, and a little upset he was about to lead them to the wrong place, “Them keeping the records in Siberia was a logical conclusion. HYDRA’s just annoying.” Damian whispers to James. He’s not the best at comforting. James nods but Damian can still see he’s unhappy with himself.

Damn it.

Damian turns to the others, the Batplane on autopilot, “Look, we have until 8:30 to find that tape, because I have exams at 9. So please be as speedy as possible.”

“Eh,” Josef starts, “you might want to head back and just send the six of us. HYDRA’s filing system is shit.”

Great.

Is it too much to ask a terrorist organization to be organized?

“Actually, I have a question about that, well, HYDRA,” Nasir starts, leaning forward, “Why haven’t you or your friends tried taking them down yet? You’re wildly aware of HYDRA being in SHIELD but you make no action to stop it.”

“Rules, I guess? With the community I grew up in, people have their own enemies. Batman has Joker, and the League of Assassins, and the Court of Owls. No other hero buts in when Batman fights them or with what they’re doing because they’re Batman’s badguys. It’s assumed that he knows whats going on and has something planned. So, until Rogers makes a move, I’m not moving to take down HYDRA. He’s aware HYDRA’s back, or he should be at least, I’ve told him about it repeatedly, so I’ll assume he has a plan and can handle it on his own. I won’t help, unless he asks for help.” Damian shrugs, “It’s just the way things are, have been.”

“Okay? Makes sense, I guess.”

“How?” Tyree asks.

“Most of the old heroes are hypercompetent. It’s not unbelievable that they can take down entire organizations on their own without help.” Nasir reasons.

“Also stops you from stepping on toes.” Valerie adds.

Almost everybody within the plane makes noises of agreement. People can get very upset about toe stepping.

_--_

Damian wasn’t entirely sure what country they were in, but he did know this. Wherever they were, it was colder than Siberia. Which, granted, didn’t leave many options for where they were, but Damian did not care about that. He cared more about getting into this HYDRA bunker where it would be less windy and biting.

The super soldiers laughed at him when he rushed in the building.

Assholes.

Damian looks around, trying to locate the file room when he comes upon a horrible realization. 

_This entire bunker was nothing but files_.

“How are these sorted?” Damian asks, looking at the others who had come in.

They all shrugged, “We were a Death Squad, not desk jockeys.” Sascha says.

“Great. Great. Everyone take a room, try and find one that has files from around December 16 1991.” With that, they all split and started digging through the horrible filing system HYDRA has.

Damian isn’t sure how much time has passed when Valerie comes into the room he was in. The room had files for December 1989 and 1990, but he couldn’t find _anything_ on December 1991. Sure he found March 1991 and October 1991, but no December!

“Please tell me you found it.” Damian was tired and he really wanted this goose chase to be over.

He also needed to write some exams.

“Nope. But, you need to get to school so I’m taking you home while the others keep looking.” Valerie says, picking Damian up and just carrying him back to the Batplane. Damian was too tired to care really.

“Fine, but you go back to searching. I’ll come back when I’m done my exams,” Damian says, swiping the Batplane keys from Valerie, “I can fly myself there and back_ and_ I don’t fully trust you five to not abandon Barnes here.”

Valeri shrugs and heads back into the bunker.

Damian starts up the Batplane and heads back to the Manor. He quickly changes into normal clothes and finds Pennyworth so he can go to school.

_-After Tests & heading back to the Bunker-_

Disembarking the Batplane, Damian instantly knew something was wrong. He hadn’t bothered putting his Batgirl suit back on, content with a puffy jacket and scarf over his school uniform. And with the knowledge that Pennyworth will make him hot cocoa when he gets back.

But right now, something was wrong. For one, Valeri and Tyree were out in front of the bunker, looking somewhat like scorned children.

“What happened?” Damian asks when he approaches the pair.

“The good news is, we found the video tape and the missions report for December 16th 1991,” Tyree holds up a file and tape.

Damian doesn’t want to know but, “What’s the bad news?” because he needs to know.

“Josef triggered the Asset for fun. We haven’t be able to de-trigger him. The others are inside sparring with him,” Valeri admits.

“They’re getting their asses kicked.” Tyree amends.

Damian sighs, “What do you mean _triggered_?” Because if they now a way to trigger Barnes, Damian needs to know so they can avoid it in the future.

Valeri shrugs, “With his trigger words?”

What.

“He has _trigger words?_” This was news to Damian.

“I told you he didn’t know.” Tyree says and Valeri waves him off.

“Shut up. And yes. Josef will write them down for you if you want.”

Damian takes a deep breath, “I’ll get them from him,” He needs to tell Quinn, maybe she’ll be able to do something. Damian walks past the two and heads into the bunker.

It was a mess.

It was _destroyed_. 

Holding back a groan Damian walks further into the bunker, following the sounds of fighting but unable to locate what room the other super soldiers were in. Luckily Damian didn’t have to locate the room as Sascha gets thrown through a wall and right into Damian’s path. Barnes steps through the hole in the wall, standing straighter than he normally would with his shoulders back and a glare on his face.

“Hey!” Damian calls, unsure if he should call Barnes by his name or not. When Barnes turns to look at him the glare is gone, replaced by a blank expression. When Barnes doesn’t say or do anything, Damian continues, “Stop. This training exercise is over. Follow me,” Damian turns and starts walking, he hears Barnes’s quiet footsteps following so he keeps walking out of the bunker. When Damian comes up Valeri and Tyree move out of his way, backing away from both him and Barnes. Damian stops and points to the Batplane, “Get in and buckle yourself up.” 

Barnes does as he’s told and Damian turns to face the other supersoldiers. Sascha, Josef and Nasir had come out. All of them looked worse for wear, but Josef looked like he was dead.

“Sorry?” Josef offers.

“Why, why would you do this?”

Josef shrugs, an action that _looked_ painful, “Curious if the words would still work. And figured a nice light exercise would be beneficial for all.”

“Getting your asses beat is light exercise?”

“We forgot how much stronger he was.” Sascha admits.

Damian sighs, “Did Barnes consent to you using the words?” No one responded, Damian waited a minute before asking, “Did you _ask_ Barnes if he was okay with you testing the words?”

None of them answer for a minute before Josef shakes his head in the negative.

Great. 

Damian nods, “Right. Get on the plane and let’s head home.” He gestures for them to move.

But they hesitate, “You’re not mad?” Sascha sounded confused, they all looked rather confused.

He wasn’t. 

And Damian came to the stark realization that he was becoming Richard, because the next words out of his mouth were, “No. I’m simply disappointed. Get in the plane.”

That- That. Those were not words he should be saying. Those are parent words. Adult words. Not words said from a child to an adult. The supersoldiers get on the plane without a word. Damian follows quickly, getting up into the pilot seat and heading back to Gotham.

He drops the other supersoldiers off at their building before heading to the cave.

Damian lands the plane and turns to Barnes, “Barnes?” He doesn’t respond, so Damian swallows and tries, “Asset?” Barnes turns his head to look at Damian. Damian tries to see if he can see any hint of James behind the emotionless mask.

He can’t.

How to handle this?

Holding back a sigh Damian unbuckles himself and stands up, “Get up,” Barnes unbuckles himself and stands up, “Follow.” Damian leads them out of the Batplane and out of the cave into the Manor. “You will do as I say, and only act when I tell you.” Damian doesn’t get a response but he’s pretty sure that’s par for the course with Barnes like this.

Damian takes them to the kitchen, he hasn’t eaten anything all day and he’s _starving_. He doubts Barnes has eaten either. “Grab me the egg carton and milk carton from the fridge,” Damian orders, popping some bread in the toaster and taking the items from Barnes when he offered them. Damian cracks a couple of eggs into a bowl before he comes to a realization on what Barnes can be doing. Obviously Damian isn’t going to make him do anything bad but giving him something to do is better than having him just stand there, right? Damian pours a bit of milk into the egg bowl before his starts whisking them. “Get me a couple of bowls from that cupboard,” Damian points to the cupboard, “ and the baking trays from there,” Damian points at a different cupboard. Barnes dutifully grabs all Damian asks and Damian pours the scrambled egg mixture into a pan and heats it up. Grabbing a spatula Damian hands it to Barnes who displays the most emotion he has in hours. Confusion. Damian pulls Barnes closer and guides his hand so the spatula is placed in the egg mixture. “Stir. Gently,” Damian instructs, moving Barnes’s hand, his flesh hand in the motions Barnes should. Quickly Barnes figured it out as was stirring the mixture on his own. “Keep at it until they’re fluffy. Call me then.” Damian says before moving away from Barnes and getting everything else.

Maybe he can recondition Barnes into cooking when he’s triggered rather than the emotionless shell that follows orders? He should probably talk to Quinn about this. 

Well, she’s currently on vacation with Dr. Isley so… Damian pulls out the other ingredients for pancakes and waffles. Bacon doesn’t really require much. So maybe not that, he should probably make himself something to eat. Turnovers were always good. Grabbing the ingredients for his preferred vegetarian breakfast, Damian deposits it all on the counter. He sorts it into the dishes he and Barnes are going to make, along with bowls in front of him. 

“Handler!” Barnes calls and Damian quickly moves over, the eggs were done. Rather beautifully. 

“Good job,” Damian says, grabbing a plate and depositing the eggs on them, “Will you eat if I tell you to?” Damian gets a scrunched brow and the barest head shake ‘no’. So, Damian puts the eggs into the microwave. “We have other things to make,” Damian says, pulling Barnes a short distance to where he had been setting up and started giving the other instructions, guiding him when necessary.

Damian was running out of breakfast foods a while ago, they had made some muffins- several batches- and most of the counter space was covered in breakfast foods, covered so they’d stay warm. Now, Barnes was finishing up with the last batch of pancakes, they had added food coloring this time- Damian had hoped Barnes might come forward with some artist license- Barnes was enjoying himself but he was still very clearly _not_ all there. Still triggered back into the recesses of his mind. 

And Damian had a plate full of blood splatter, bullet and knife shaped pancakes. 

Damian grabbed a carton of eggs from the fridge, he remembered Richard talking about something called a “Cloud Egg” sometime ago, he had researched it and thought it was a stupid about of effort and time for an _egg_, but he was going to make some with Barnes.

Because he was running out of ideas.

_-Change in POV-_

Living and working for the Wayne family for so long, nothing really surprised Alfred anymore. So, when he walked into the kitchen to find Damian teaching James how to beat egg whites, he didn’t question it. He also didn’t question the food covering every inch of the kitchen. Or how it was all breakfast food and it was nearly 5pm.

Instead, he asks, “Master Damian, might I share your creations with the rest of the family?”

Damian answered without looking up,“Go ahead Pennyworth.” He also mutters something to James but Alfred does not catch it, instead, he grabs a couple of the dishes and takes them out to the dining room, placing them on the table and checking what was underneath the dome covering. 

Alfred arranges the food accordingly, returning to the Kitchen to retrieve more and fully set the table before Bruce comes down to eat. Swiftly followed by the rest of the household.

At precisely 5pm, Bruce sits down at the dining room table, on his phone. It only took five minutes for the rest of the family to arrive, and once they did, Alfred removed the dome coverings from each.

“Breakfast for dinner Alfred?” Bruce asks, an eyebrow raised.

“Master Damian and Sergeant Barnes were cooking up quite a storm, I felt it rude to waste their efforts.” Alfred explains pulling the dome off the last dish and somewhat regrets it. He really should have checked the pancakes, as they were very clearly blood splatter, knives and bullets. Honestly. Although he shouldn’t be surprised that Jason immediately swipes the plate.

“Are they still cooking?” Timothy asks.

“Yes, last I saw they were making eggs in the oven.”

“What?”

“You’re welcome to check on them yourselves,” Alfred says and heads back to the kitchen to deposit the domes. He hears a couple of the Manor residents get up and follow him.

Damian doesn’t pay him any attention when he enters, continuing to talk to James who was holding up a fluffy egg, “It’s called a cloud egg. I think it’s more aesthetically pleasing than anything.” James seemed enamoured with the egg.

“Are you sharing those?” Jason asks, clearly with his mouth full. It takes everything in Alfred to not snap at the boy.

“If you can learn not to talk with your mouth full.” Damian snipes, at least one of them had proper manners. Alfred deposits the dome plate coverings in their rightful spot and turns to face his family. Jason was holding a half-eaten blood splatter pancake in his hand, Bruce had an eyebrow raised, an expression Stephanie was mirroring, all were in the doorway.

“Mouth empty, share?” Jason asks, now with his mouth void of food, thankfully. Damian turns around and grabs a plate that has eight more ‘Cloud eggs’, sliding them over the island toward the rest of the family. Jason catches it and takes it out to the table. Stephanie follows quickly after, yelling something about eating them all. Bruce hangs around the longest, expression shifting into a fond smile before he leaves the kitchen.

Damian had ignored them all after giving Jason the ‘Cloud Eggs’, focusing on Barnes. Alfred quietly grabs himself some food and leaves the Kitchen.

_-Back to Damian-_

“So, can we make lunch foods next time?” James asks, still examining the cloud egg with interest. 

“Sure,” Damian answers before he realizes, “Wait how long-”

“Since we started these eggs. It’s weird, getting triggered but just, having memories of cooking.”

Damian nods, “you know you can eat that, right?” 

“But it’s so pretty.”

“It’s food.” 

James sighs, “yeah,” and puts the egg down, grabbing a knife and fork and digging in. Damian pulls the bowl of fruit they had been using for a couple of other things toward him and started popping berries into his mouth. Now that James was back, he can figure out what the hell to do about that video.

The mission report and video were still on the Batplane.

Damian hadn’t wanted to take them off in case they could trigger James in any way.

“Mm, it looked better than it tasted.” James says popping the last bit of egg into his mouth. After swallowing he asks, “So, the video?”

“It’s in the Batplane. There’s also the mission report with it. I was planning on watching the video and reading the mission report before heading over to Tony’s to talk to him.” Damian explains.

“I want to watch the video.”

Damian’s immediate reaction was to deny him, but Quinn had drilled into him how important it was that James be allowed to make his own choices, even if they were bad. So, “Do you think it might trigger you?”

Because if so, they’re watching it tomorrow.

But James shakes his head, “No. It-it shouldn’t. Can we watch it?” Damian nods.

“After we clean up,” There were a _lot_ of dirty dishes, “Pennyworth will kill me if we leave the kitchen a mess.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So couple things;
> 
> The ageing thing/ Slight Temporal Distrubance Zones is something I've kind of hc for a while in regards to comic book ageing. Ageing just works differently in the comic book world than it does IRL, and that kind of stagnation or sudden growth, or de-aging, is just kind of normal to them. But since this is a crossover with a Universe that has normal ageing (somewhat? Bucky's birth year changes like three times. I'm sure others do too,) I kind of adjusting this general acceptance of comic book universe has weird ageing and made it into the Slight Temporal Disturbance Zone stuff so it'd make sense. 
> 
> Also, ages/ birth dates given are the closest I could get to what their birtdates would actually be considering when Bruce and Dick first showed up in comic books and what age Dick was when he became Robin (at least imo as I've heard a few different ages)
> 
> I wanted Damian to apologize to Tony because the way I ended things with Tony in the last chapter just left a bad taste in my mouth after like a day but I didn't know how to really fix that, so, Damian apologizes to Tony after talking with Dick or just his fam in general.
> 
> There are certain things in regards to James winter-soldiering that I'll address in the next Chapter (whenever I write it). But with how I portray the Winter Soldier- I wanted to kind of keep as close to canon as possible and we don't really see him being randomly violent? Like he doesn't attack anyone who isn't a) a target or b) in his way. So he wasn't going to attack Damian and he wouldn't randomly lash out at anyone. He just follows orders. Why he deferred to Damian will be addressed in the next Chap. Whenever that is.
> 
> Also, part of me wants to remove that Alfred part, Idk, it feels out of place. Tell me if you think I should edit it out.
> 
> Uh, if you have any questions, leave them below.  
In general, comments are welcome.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Hoped you enjoyed it! (If you didn't you can leave a comment as well I guess? If you want. IDK how you made it this far if you don't like this.)


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